


The Prolific Works of the Arctic Butcher

by HaveFunStormingTheCastle



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Criminal Masterminds, Everyone else is in this but in the background, F/F, Gen, Investigations, Kidnapping, Murder, Murder Mystery, Reunions, Romance, Schizophrenia, Serial Killers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:00:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28783833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaveFunStormingTheCastle/pseuds/HaveFunStormingTheCastle
Summary: Seventeen years after a fateful encounter in an overcrowded nightclub, Bonnie Brooks has everything she ever wanted. She is an inventor, an entrepreneur, and after using her company to reignite the economy in her home town, the mayor of a mid-size city. Powerful and perceptive, she works hard to protect her citizens... until three women end up dead and dumped in suspicious circumstances. Certain there is more to the case than meets the eye, she enlists the help of the only captain on her police force she is certain she can trust.Marceline Abadeer has the life most legends dream of. Having risen to stardom as a teenager, her band holds the record for the most Grammys won by a rock band in US history. Well on her way to being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, she takes an unexpected detour when she receives heartbreaking news that sends her somewhere she never thought she would go again - home.Driven together by calamitous circumstances, the two will be forced to examine their shared past and revisit the destruction they each left in their wake, even as they investigate a sinister killer with perilous intentions for them both.
Relationships: Finn the Human & Jake the Dog, Finn the Human/Jake the Dog, Hunson Abadeer & Marceline, Ice King | Simon Petrikov & Marceline, Marceline/Marceline's Mom (Adventure Time), Princess Bubblegum & Finn the Human & Jake the Dog & Marceline, Princess Bubblegum & Marceline, Princess Bubblegum/Marceline
Comments: 38
Kudos: 57





	1. The Euphoria of a Broken Club and Destructively Loud Music

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I guess this is what happens when you get drunk and watch Obsidian. Enjoy.

_Seventeen Years Earlier_

The club was located on one of those back streets that never got clean. All throughout the summer, it had accumulated a layer of grime that left anyone who so much as walked on it feeling sticky, and it was encased in a fug of rotting garbage and the urine of the very drunk or the very poor. _Probably both_ , Bonnie thought wryly as she tried to keep herself from being bothered by the stench. The heat of the day was only working hard to enhance the smell and remind everyone that it needed to rain, _desperately_. In the back of her mind, she remembered someone once telling her that the best way to deal with a bad smell was to try and breathe hard through the nose until you couldn’t smell it anymore. Realizing she had no other choice, Bonnie inhaled slowly and made a face as she tried not to gag.

“You okay?” the boy next to her asked. His name was something vaguely British like _Harry_ , or _Henry_ , or… Bonnie couldn’t remember. She’d have to check her DMs when she got the chance. Until then, she’d just avoid trying to call him anything.

“Yeah,” she said and cleared her throat, as if that spoke for her seeming disgust. “Just, uh, got something caught in my throat.” _Why did I agree to this date again?_ Bonnie asked herself. _Oh, right, because my roommates were about to murder me in my sleep if I didn’t get out of the dorm. Fucking roommates._

In a fit of self-righteous pithiness, her two roommates had pounced on her earlier that week and declared themselves her guardians, in light of the fact that she didn’t have any.

“Look, it’s not that we want to say you don’t have _anyone_ ,” Lila had tactlessly whined while Jackie sat on a squirming Bonnie, who was trying, and failing, to roll out from under the weight of her friend. “It’s just… well, you need us. And we know what’s best.”

“I’m FINE! I’m not, like, suicidal or anything!” Bonnie shrieked between pants. Jackie had the rock-hard body of a lifelong athlete and the deceptive weight to prove it. Being pinned by her was like being held down by a statue. She was certainly every bit as dense and unmoving as marble.

“You’re not fine,” Lila scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You don’t even have any friends.”

“I have friends! They’re just not _your_ friends!” Bonnie let out a final grunt and finally just went limp under Jackie’s unyielding form. She didn’t have the strength to fight anymore; Jackie had pressed all the oxygen out of her lungs, and she was starting to get dizzy.

“Animals you take care of in the lab aren’t friends. They’re lab rats. Literally. You’re not even allowed to name them.”

“Hmmmmrrrmmm…” Was all that Bonnie managed to utter.

“Excellent. Glad you see it our way. Jackie?”

Without another word, the weight on top of Bonnie shifted and she felt a hand reach over to grab her phone off the bedside table. She used the opportunity of temporary reprieve to suck in some much-needed air. Relief flooded her lungs, even as the room spun. “Get off,” she gasped at the weight that was still on top of her.

“Just one thing,” Jackie said with a shrug and shot Bonnie a questioning look. Bonnie tried to put up one last fight with an invented spurt of energy and failed miserably. Realizing resistance was futile, she exhaled sharply and recited her passcode in a dead voice. Her phone unlocked with traitorous ease. “’Kay,” Jackie said and stood up. Suddenly, Bonnie felt as if she were so light, she wouldn’t have been surprised to find herself floating.

“Assholes,” she spat.

“Mmm… you’ll thank us when you find your first boyfriend,” Lila said with a shrug and went to work on Bonnie’s phone.

 _Well, I’m not thanking them yet_ , Bonnie thought sardonically, but tried not to be too bitter. It was, after all, a beautiful day, and she was not one to turn down a chance to stand in the sun. Leaning back against the light aluminum railing that was set up to organize the line, Bonnie closed her eyes, turned her face up to the sky, and tried to absorb as much sunlight as possible, ignoring the small voice in her mind that warned her she would start burning soon. _Nah_ , she reminded the voice. _It’s after six. At worst, I’ll get a little pink._ Trying not to smile, she felt Henry’s ( _Hank’s? Hubert’s?_ ) eyes on her, so she twisted her head back and forth to let him admire the curve of her neck and the way her strawberry blonde hair cascaded down her back. Bitterness at her roommates’ invasion of her privacy aside, it _was_ nice to be admired.

“So,” Bonnie said without looking at her nameless date, “Are you a big fan of the Vampire Queens?”

“Yeah, uh, I like to see them play whenever they’re in town,” he replied. He paused awkwardly and looked down at his shoes.

 _Maybe I’ll just call him Voldemort_ , Bonnie thought. _Because he must not be named._

“Are you a fan?” he asked after a minute.

Bonnie bit back a retort about how that would have been a good question to ask her before he bought the tickets for a first internet date. But she reminded herself, she _had_ agreed to come. “I mean,” she said, “I’ve heard one or two of their songs on the radio. Never really listened to them much, though.”

“Oh,” Voldemort said, and fell back into silence.

Resigned, Bonnie could see exactly where the night was heading: into obligatory small-talk and awkward pauses. _Great_.

“All right, folks,” a voice to their right called, “Get your tickets out and have them ready with your IDs.”

With a small sigh of relief, Bonnie opened her eyes and obediently dug into her pocket to pull out her wallet and retrieve her fake ID. With a gesture from Voldemort, she handed it over and prepared to move. The bouncer raised an eyebrow at her when they handed the bundle over, but otherwise let them pass without comment. Glancing quickly at her date’s ID as he shoved it back in his wallet, she was surprised to see his name was actually Hunter. _Huh_ , she thought with a shrug.

“This way,” Hunter said and grabbed her hand to pull her off to the right and up a rickety set of stairs. They were so narrow and oddly placed, that had Hunter not guided her, Bonnie would never have even known they were there. “It’s better upstairs,” he explained.

Hunter was right. The upstairs worked as a sort of balcony in the club, hugging the wall like a horseshoe. A railing kept anyone from falling down into the audience pit below but was otherwise open to the whole space. Rushing forward, Hunter dragged Bonnie to an area that was close to the stage below them and grabbed a table with two chairs. “Guard it with your life,” he said with more passion than he’d shown all night. Bonnie nodded and eyed him suspiciously. “I’m gonna go get drinks. I’ll be back. _Don’t move_.” The last was more of an order than a request, and Bonnie found herself sinking into one of the cheap metal chairs with a bit of consternation. Deciding to obey, she placed a foot on the other chair, which rocked unsteadily every time she moved. To her left, she looked down and watched several people dressed in black move around onstage as they set up. Slowly, the audience began to fill, and Bonnie understood Hunter’s excitement. There were no seats in the downstairs section. At least upstairs, they could sit and drink, and she wouldn’t have to battle to see the stage with some sasquatch of a fan who would hog the front row with his burly buddies. Feeling considerably warmer toward her blind date for his consideration, she leaned back in her seat and prepared herself to enjoy the evening.

They drank their way through the first act, which was an unknown metal band that mostly just spent their time attempting guitar solos and throwing their hair around. In spite of what was clearly their best efforts, however, they only succeeded in giving Bonnie a headache. When they played their final note and shouted goodnight to the lukewarm crowd, Bonnie jumped up and excused herself to the restroom. Enjoying the retreat from the noise, she made her way slowly around the horseshoe balcony, down another narrow staircase, and into a hallway where half the women in the bar were waiting in line with varying degrees of frustration and impatience. Half an hour later, she shoved her way through the flimsy wooden door, dancing on her tiptoes and trying not to burst. As she slid the latch in the half-broken lock, the noise of the crowd immediately became muffled, and Bonnie exhaled, pressing her back against the door. Looking around, she took in the thick coat of graffiti on the walls and wasn’t sure if she should be horrified or thrilled. _In ten years, I wonder if I’ll still want to come to clubs like this_ , she thought. It had been Hunter’s idea, but she had jumped at the chance after all. _Maybe I’ll be young forever, preferring dive bars and motorcycles to classy restaurants and BMWs_. It was a nice idea, but in that moment, she could see exactly how age would suck the joy out of a graffiti-laden bathroom in a broken club with rickety furniture, cheap liquor, and destructively loud music.

Determined to enjoy the experience in all its hellish glory, Bonnie stumbled forward and slumped onto the toilet. She sighed as she peed, grateful to have made it. Three drinks that tasted of candy, which Hunter had called a _Gummy Bear,_ and the remnants of the first band ensured a steady ring in her ears. It so whiny that she almost didn’t hear it when a woman’s silky voice came onto the speakers and shouted to the room, “Good evening, New York!” Sluggishly, Bonnie looked up and squinted at the door. It wasn’t until the crowd let loose a deafening cheer that Bonnie realized she was missing something.

“Shit!” she yelled and jumped up. Moving at warp speed, she flushed, gave her hands a cursory rinse and shake, and tore out of the bathroom. Onstage, the band was already playing. The lead singer of the band, a willowy bassist with messy, thick black hair and large, dark eyes, was banging her head as her fingers plucked at the strings, her hair flying in every direction. Bonnie paused at the back of the crowd and listened. Three notes in, and she could already tell it was a beautiful song.

_Seeking up from far beneath_

_Moonlight strands dance over me_

_A cathedral-stained glass higher peace_

_Sends me drifting back under_

Had Taylor Swift gotten her hands on the song, it would have been a ballad. A sappy, auto-tuned, epic love ballad. But here, with a metal band, it was something… strangely enchanting. Woven with the drums and electric guitar solos was a lilting melody that was somehow instantly familiar to Bonnie. Without thinking, she moved forward into the crowd, edging into spaces between people and slowly making her way toward the stage.

A niggling voice in the back of her brain reminded Bonnie that she had a date upstairs who was waiting for her. _Let him wait a few minutes_ , she thought. The line to the bathroom had been long. She could always say it was a little longer. Or that her way back had been blocked by the crowd. Or that she got lost.

The drummer in the back looked like she was fulfilling her life’s destiny by beating a piece of equipment with a wooden stake. With every beat, she threw her entire body into the act of hitting the drum. Her hair, which was glossy and straight, was pinned back neatly to her head with a few braids and a ponytail that kept whipping around to the time of the song. It was fascinating to watch. Bonnie paused to admire her agile movements and swift transitions. She was doubly impressed when the drummer then slammed her drumstick so hard onto the metal that the whole thing shattered, its bits flying off onto the stage. Without blinking, the drummer continued the beat with one hand while she reached into her back pocket and pulled out another drumstick, and then continued on.

The lead guitarist was another girl. She was shorter than the lead singer/bass player and the drummer, but she looked older. Her hands moved deftly across the strings, plucking a rhythm that Bonnie couldn’t keep up with.

_In the heart of devotion that’s devouring me_

_And all this emotion was pouring out of me_

_But the pieces I have are flying away free_

_With the heart of devotion, we will never be_

But neither of those two members of the band held a candle to the bass player, the lead singer. Her voice was rich, smooth, and sweet, which was an odd combination for a rock band, but it somehow worked. Dark eyes scanned the club, lighting up as the crowd began to sing with her. “Yeah!” she yelled between stanzas and grinned cheekily. It transformed her whole face, and Bonnie was loath to look away.

 _Live music is always better than recorded_ , Bonnie told herself as the next song began. It was one she knew; one that she had heard overplayed on the radio until the sound of the first few notes left her in a seething rage that she was unable to explain. But here, live, it was different somehow. She could hear the light scratch of fingers on wires as the guitarist switched notes; hear the whispering gasp of the singer inhaling. It was raw and unfiltered. There was no auto-tune to make it tinny and perfect. The singer’s face moved with each lyric, her emotions written plainly in her eyes, heightening the drama of the song. _She believes in what she’s singing_ , Bonnie realized and stepped forward, pulled in toward the stage. She couldn’t help it; the song – the band – the singer – they were magnetic.

It was magic; there was no other explanation for it. Bonnie didn’t tear her eyes away for the next ninety minutes. She was present for every second; she relished every note. She held on tightly to the time, and it still slipped away easier than water in her hands. By the tenth song of the night, as the band announced they were almost finished, Bonnie was addicted. She was also somehow only a few feet away from the stage and no longer noticing the blaring sound of the speakers right in front of her. Perhaps her hearing was eternally damaged, but she wouldn’t have known or cared in that moment.

“You guys have been a great crowd! I _love_ it! You should go out and give the rest of the world lessons on being so awesome!” The singer yelled. The crowd grew deafening in response. “We’re gonna play one more for you,” she continued.

The crowd responded with a chorus of “Awwwww!”

“I know, I know;” the singer said and held up a hand in apology. “I’ll miss you too. If I could stand the heat, I’d sing to you all night.”

The crowd cheered.

“I’ll just have to settle for one more song, if I can get a little cooler.” And with that, she tore off her shirt.

The crowd roared and screamed at the sight of her in just a sports bra, hands waving, people jumping around trying to get her to toss the shirt their way.

Bonnie laughed and clapped with the rest of them. The singer dabbed at her face with the shirt and then paused, looking around dramatically. The cheers grew deafening in the tiny space. “Oh, you guys want this?” The singer asked mockingly. “Gross. It totally has my sweat on it.” They laughed. “Might as well just throw it away.” And she tossed it into the pit, and right at Bonnie.

By all accounts, Bonnie shouldn’t have caught it. There was at least one guy in front of her who could have reached up and plucked it out of its projected path. Another ten could have thrown themselves into the air and had a fighting chance at catching it. But without thinking, Bonnie reached up and the t-shirt floated right into her hands. When she shifted her gaze back up to the stage, the singer was grinning at her. Bonnie grinned back, both of their smiles growing larger at seeing the other’s genuine glee. The singer winked at Bonnie and turned back to the crowd. Bonnie wiped roughly at her eye with her wrist, which had started to water. She didn’t even care that her date spent the whole evening without her.


	2. The Tumultuous Nature of Distrust

Bonnie braced her hands on her desk and leaned forward, eyeing the two officers suspiciously. “You look like you’re twelve,” she said to the younger one. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen, Ma’am!” The kid answered enthusiastically. He had a scratchy voice that hadn’t quite finished changing, and the white-blonde hair that was only natural in the very young. Bonnie almost mourned the moment when he would wake up one day and realize it was turning chestnut, like she had years ago. Her hair, once a golden strawberry blonde, now hovered on the edge of auburn. “And thank you!” the kid continued, “I want to get placed under cover with the units in high schools. If you think I look that young, then I’ve got a chance!”

Bonnie refrained from groaning as she looked down at her hands. At eighteen, he was barely out of the Academy. She wasn’t even sure it should be legal to let kids that young onto the force. _This is who the Captain sends me? A pair of uniforms so green they could pass as vegetables?_ She paused and examined the two boys standing in her office. _Well, okay, the other one isn’t so bad_ , she chastised herself.

“And you, how long have you been on the force?” she asked the taller officer. He had dirty blonde hair and a neatly trimmed beard that oddly suited him.

“Five years, Madam Mayor,” he said respectfully with a grin. But there was a glint in his eye that said a little more.

“You take the Detective’s exam?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered.

“Did you pass?”

The officer laughed. “Yes, ma’am. With flying colors.” His voice was not deep, exactly, but it was rough around the edges. It was oddly comforting.

“Why aren’t you a detective, then?” Bonnie asked and straightened up, folding her arms.

The officer shrugged. “Not in the budget,” he said simply.

Bonnie nodded. “Okay,” she said gently. “Stay here.” And she picked up the phone on her desk and began to dial.

“Who’re you-,” the officer started to ask, but Bonnie cut him off by holding up a finger.

A voice came on the other side of the line. The two officers looked on curiously and strained to listen as Bonnie asked for the Captain.

“Yeah,” a gruff voice answered.

“Captain Garr,” Bonnie said.

“Mayor Brooks,” the Captain answered.

“I understand that this officer,” she glanced over towards the older of the two officers, who mouthed and whispered his name, “Jake… Dogon? Yes, Dogon. I understand that he took the detective’s exam and was not promoted.”

“Yeah?” the Captain grunted.

“I want him promoted.”

There was a pause. Finally, the Captain asked, “Why?”

“If he’s going to work on the case, I want him to _work_ on the _case_. I don’t want a couple of uniforms getting shut out of every room we need them in because it wasn’t in the budget.”

There was a pause on the other end. And then, “That’s all well and good, and I see your point. Don’t want nobody saying they don’t have the clearance or some bullshit like that just because they ain’t wearing a suit ‘n tie,” the Captain carefully drawled.

“Excellent-,” Bonnie started to say, but the Captain cut her off.

“But if I go promotin’ fellas that aren’t first in line when we ain’t got the budget, well, people are gonna start to wonder if they’re givin’ me special favors,” he finished.

“Then let them think he’s giving you special favors,” Bonnie snapped. “Let them catch him blowing you in an alley, for all I care. I can’t have _just_ two uniforms on this, you hear me?” She looked up to see both officers looking at her with wide eyes and a touch of admiration. “It’s either a promotion for one of them or send me two detectives.” The officers’ faces fell when she said it. Bonnie looked back down at her hands.

“You know, with a mouth like that, you could run this damn precinct,” the Captain quipped.

“I could, but then what would be the point of _you_?” Bonnie asked a bit maliciously. She bit her lip after she said it and winced. She needed to calm down a bit, she knew, but the Captain just laughed.

“You wanna take over my job, be my guest,” he said with undisguised glee.

Bonnie sighed. “Captain.”

“I know, I know,” he answered. “Look, give me a couple weeks, and I promise to at least look into finding a good excuse for promoting the pup. In the meantime, we gotta use what we have. Those two, odd as it sounds, are my best. They may look like half-drowned weasels on a fat day, but they got the skills and the compassion that a lot of protestors are asking for. Ya hear me?”

"Yeah,” Bonnie said, a little defeated.

“Ya can’t teach that. Well, maybe you can, but it’s not the same as good old-fashioned character. And these two boys have it in spades. Plus, they’re the only ones here I’m sure aren’t in anyone’s pocket.”

Bonnie silently wished he hadn’t said that last part. It was something she didn’t need to think about. “Well, keep me updated, and I’ll be sure to call you every few days to get an update.”

“You do that,” the Captain said with all the enthusiasm of someone promising to floss their teeth and hung up. The pride in Bonnie ruffled as she listened to the slam of his phone, but she took a breath and steadied herself. She didn’t need to go looking for battles when she had a war to fight on the other side. Instead, she just looked up at the officers who were still standing in her office and gazing at her like she was some kind of deity.

“And you,” she said, gently replacing her phone, “What’s your name?”

“Oh! Me?” the younger officer asked and pointed at himself. He looked at Jake and then back at Bonnie. “Uh, Finn. Mertens. Finn Mertens. That’s me!” He ended with a genuine smile that could never seem to slip entirely from his face. Against her reservations, Bonnie found herself liking the kid with his unbridled enthusiasm.

“Okay, well, Officers Dogon and Mertens, how much did Garr tell you?”

“Mmm…” Jake started and put a finger to his lips. “He didn’t tell us much. Just that we’re working a kidnapping case and to come see you. To, you know, _liaise_. He said he wanted us keeping you informed.”

Bonnie pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes while she thought. Garr hadn’t said much, but he _had_ sent them over to her. And on the phone, he had assured her they weren’t in anyone’s pockets. So, either he didn’t trust the pair – which was counter to evidence – or he didn’t trust the precinct. “Okay,” she said after a moment and opened the third drawer down on the left side of her desk. Primly, she removed a device that looked like a tube of lipstick and twisted the top and bottom in opposite directions. Nothing happened. At least, nothing the boys could see. “It’s a bug-killer,” Bonnie explained to their confused expressions. “I don’t want anyone listening in who…” she stopped, shook her head, and started again. “The truth is,” she paused again, gravity setting in. There was no going back. She either had to trust them, or… well, there was no _or_. “The truth is I believe we have a serial killer on our hands.”

“Oooh,” Finn and Jake said in unison and looked at each other with mutual excitement.

“Not _ooh_ ,” Bonnie snapped. “Women are dying in our town. And someone – or several some _ones_ – are helping the killer.”

“How do you know someone’s helping?” Finn asked at exactly the same time as Jake asked, “How do you know it’s a serial killer?” They had wiped the excitement off their faces, but both still bore the evidence of curiosity.

“Evidence has gone missing; reporters are being hushed up; we found three bodies over the past eight months and every time, the officers sat around with their thumbs up their asses until the trail went cold. Some _one_ is helping to keep this case from being investigated,” Bonnie said pointedly and raised an eyebrow at them.

“You think it’s a cop,” Jake said.

Bonnie bit back a retort about stating the obvious and simply said, “Yes. Maybe. I think it’s someone who has access to that kind of evidence. Someone who has the power to order others to bury leads without raising any eyebrows.” Captain Garr had come to mind more than once whenever she let herself speculate on suspects. But every time, Bonnie had ruled him out. It would make sense if he were getting anything out of it, but Bonnie had been to his house for dinner, spent years in his company, and read his file annually. He was too old, too poor, and far too cantankerous to be taken in by anything so menial as greed. If anything, Bonnie was certain whoever it was that was in the killer’s pocket, they were giving the old Captain a wide berth. “We need tight lips on this one,” she said and pierced the officers with a look.

“We got you,” Finn said. “We’re all ninja-styles on this one.” He moved his hands in front of his face like someone performing Tai Chi as he said it and posed.

“Yeah, nobody ninjas like me and Finn,” Jake chimed in. “We’ll be quieter than a couple of tiny cops you can put in your pocket.”

Bonnie cracked a smile in spite of herself. “Have a seat,” she said by way of a response and gestured to the two overstuffed armchairs in front of her desk. “Let me brief you on what we know so far.” Finn and Jake obliged, and Bonnie delicately sat down in her own leather office chair. She waited until the officers were situated, and then leaned forward, placed her elbows on the desk, and tented the tips of her fingers together. When she was sure they were listening, she began.

“Like I said, three women have been found murdered in the past eight months, all matching the same MO,” Bonnie said gravely. Finn and Jake listened with avid curiosity, but otherwise had the grace not to interrupt her. “The first was a kid, a runaway, barely seventeen, named Cinna Lee Bonwell. She was missing for about four months before her body turned up. Her parents said she tended to run away about twice a year since she was twelve. The first few times, they called the cops, went through Amber alerts, stayed up and worried. But after about the fourth or fifth time she ran, they just…” Bonnie paused and looked down. The silence swallowed her words until the dark thought had settled. “Well, she went missing back in August of last year, and they waited a few days before they notified the police. They thought she would turn up, tripping and out of cash, like she usually did. But when she didn’t come home the last time, well…”

Finn and Jake shot each other glances, both considering what could have driven a teenage girl to run away from her home so much, only to drag herself back when she ran out of options or drugs. _Was she desperate when she left?_ Bonnie wondered as she saw their shared glances, _or only when she came home?_

“Cops didn’t do much, did they?” Jake asked after a moment of silence.

Bonnie nodded. “In all fairness, there wasn’t much they could do. She was a minor, so they at least ran the circuit and checked all the usual spots. But they didn’t find anything, and after a while with no leads, they let it go.” Again, she fell into silence, allowing her mind to wander into the territory of what could have been done differently. “Anyway,” she said with a forced, wooden tone, “when the police found her body, it was three and a half months later, in late November. She had been strangled to death.”

“Tortured?” Jake asked.

Bonnie shook her head. “The first one was the kindest,” she said stoically. “She was strangled, but the medical examiner also believes she was held somewhere cold for several days before she was killed.”

“That’s ‘ _kind’_?” Finn asked, his voice cracking a bit on the second word.

Bonnie nodded. “Compared to the other two. It looks like he just kept her locked in a refrigerator and strangled her after a couple days. The others… were not so lucky.”

"What happened to them?” Jake asked grimly. All signs of his curious glee were gone. Now, he just looked resigned and a bit nauseated.

“Same,” Bonnie said simply, “held in a fridge, strangled, and dumped. But the second woman, a stripper named Apple Pie -,”

“Nooooo,” Finn and Jake mused in unison.

Bonnie let out a small laugh and continued, “Stage name Apple Pie; legal name was Olive Tree Trunkhill,” to which both Finn and Jake groaned as Bonnie raised her voice to talk over them. “Her parents belonged to some sort of collective community. They were big into being one with nature.” Finn and Jake’s groans only grew louder and made Bonnie laugh again and cut some of the tension. When they finished, she paused, giving them a moment before she continued, “Olive was twenty-one and working her way through college. Her parents didn’t have the money to pay for her education. So, she stripped.”

"Yeah, well, from what I understand, you can make a few bucks that way. Not that I’ve tried -,” Jake started to say.

“- Or contributed,” Finn interjected. Jake shot him an indignant glare.

“Which is exactly what happened,” Bonnie said pointedly. “She was working part-time, and still managed to pay for her tuition and an apartment that she shared with her roommate. She went missing in mid-January, and her body turned up three weeks later, buried in an apple orchard just outside of town.” Bonnie paused as everyone considered the poetry of the poor girl’s burial site. “After she was found, the medical examiner said that she had been held in a cold environment for a couple weeks.” She hesitated for just a second before adding, “She had also been raped, unlike the first girl.” Finn and Jake went unusually silent and stared down at their hands. “The third woman was older than the other two.”

Finn’s head snapped up. “You mean, like a grandma?” he asked, horrified.

Bonnie let out a small laugh that turned into a cough. “No,” she said when she had recovered. “But she wasn’t a kid. She was thirty, and she worked for the university.”

“Waaaait, I remember this one,” Jake said slowly and shook his finger at Bonnie as it came back to him. “Wasn’t she like some kind of shrink?”

“Brooke Feste. She was a counselor in the Department of Mental Health,” Bonnie clarified.

“Yeah,” Jake said, his eyes brightening. “Our department nabbed this one.” He paused, and then added, “Wait! We didn’t let this one slide! We caught the guy. He’s waiting for trial right now.”

Bonnie looked down at her hands, which were clasped together on top of her desk, and cleared her throat. “According to witnesses, Brooke was working late one night and left the office at around 7. She waved to the security guard, who confirmed seeing her leave, and never made it home. The man that was arrested is a single father of two pre-teens. He works two jobs just to take care of his family and doesn’t own any other properties than his two-bedroom house that he shares with his kids. According to timecards the police recovered, he was working until 6:30 the night Brooke disappeared, and was home in time to make dinner for his kids. You really think it was him?”

Jake glared at her for just a moment. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” he asked in a low growl.

Bonnie met his gaze and held it with her own steady confidence. “He had no other properties where he could have stored her without getting caught. His kids confirm he was home by seven. They said it was a normal night, and nothing seemed out of place. He was supposed to have left work on the other side of town, grabbed Brooke, stashed her, and gotten home to make dinner all inside half an hour?”

“I get what you’re trying to do,” Jake continued, “but I don’t appreciate the implication that -,”

“Jake,” Finn interrupted. Jake snapped his head to the right to glare at him. “We have to listen,” Finn said simply. “She’s the mayor. She wouldn’t have asked us here if she wasn’t sure.”

“She didn’t ask us here,” Jake reminded him.

Finn shrugged. “Still,” he said, “It’s our duties as heroes -,”

“We’re not heroes!” Jake snapped. “We’re cops! We don’t fly around looking for adventures and super-villains to thwart.”

"No, we look for super-villains to _arrest_ ,” Finn said. “Especially the kind that kidnap princesses.”

“They’re not princesses,” Jake retorted in exasperation.

"Tell that to their parents,” Finn retorted and crossed his arms. When Jake didn’t say anything, he added, “Are you really so sure this guy is guilty that you won’t at least double-check the evidence? Isn’t it worth it if he’s innocent?”

Jake opened his mouth like he was about to argue, and then stopped. Bonnie watched an array of emotions and thoughts parade across his face as he worked through all the reasons they should refuse. She could only imagine that he wanted to point out that the first victim, the girl who ran away, might not have been a princess in her parents’ eyes. That he wanted to rage about trusting the others on the force and having the backs of their brothers in blue. That if they did what the Bonnie was asking them to do, if they started digging where they shouldn’t be, _they_ would be the villains, the traitors, the backstabbers. But when he turned to face his partner and tried to stare him down, he couldn’t help but fall victim to Finn’s large, innocent, heroic eyes. With a sigh, he deflated.

“Fine,” Jake said and turned to Bonnie, “What do you want us to do?”


	3. The Whimsical World of Insanity

Marceline turned down the street and began to wonder if she had accidentally wandered into the Twilight Zone. The road she was on had that creepy, otherworldly vibe to it, complete with crumbling pavement and overgrown trees that draped in a canopy over the roadway. Sunbeams trickled through the ceiling of leaves and bathed the world in effervescent green. _The roads weren’t this bad when I lived here, were they?_ Marceline asked herself and slowed to avoid several potholes that threatened to unseat her. Shaking her head, she wondered how she’d gotten there in the first place.

When she’d left L.A., Marceline had planned on heading straight for the nursing home. Even as she left the airport, she’d started by following the directions chirping in her ear. But somewhere along the way, she’d tuned out the semi-robotic voice giving her instructions and let autopilot kick in. When she woke from her reverie, she was speeding down familiar back roads and marveling over the lack of paving as Siri told her to turn around every fifteen seconds.

“Stop directions,” Marceline finally shouted when she realized she could get her phone to shut up. She swerved to avoid another crack, made a right turn, gunned it up a hill and around a bend, and then… And then she was there.

The house grew out of the trees. Well, sort of. It was a log cabin built into the side of a mountain, with the backyard looking out over what was practically a cliff. Sturdy wooden beams stretched upward from a concrete base and held the back half of the house aloft. As Marceline forced her bike up the long, steep driveway, she couldn’t help but marvel at how much had stayed the same. Aside from the vines of ivy creeping up the sides of the cabin, it was still the same log home that…

That.

Marceline braked and came to a sudden stop. She parked her bike and pulled off her helmet, shaking her thick black hair free as she tried to get some air on her sweaty temples. The air was even greener than it had looked behind the visor of her helmet, and it took her a few moments to let her eyes adjust to the harsher light.

 _Marcy_ , the wind said, making Marceline jump. Frantically, she glanced around and searched the spaces between the thick trees, her gaze shifting a full 360 degrees before realizing it couldn’t have been real. _She_ wasn’t here. No one knew she was even going to be in town. In theory, she was due to head out on a European tour in a week, but Marceline already knew she was going to postpone it. She just couldn’t do it. Not now. She’d never forgive herself if she took off just when she was probably needed the most.

If she was needed at all.

Fully aware she was procrastinating, Marceline placed her helmet on the seat of her bike and gingerly walked toward the front door, trying to take in as much of the sight as she could. “Hello?” she called and knocked. She didn’t wait long before deciding the place was empty, and with a quick pick of the lock, was soon inside and continuing her solitary tour. “Anyone home?” she added for good measure as she entered the kitchen.

It clearly had a new tenant. Perhaps a couple of tenants, actually. Dishes were scattered haphazardly on the counter; jackets were piled on various chairs; books, gadgets, and other random items littered the living room, where an oversized TV took up most of one wall. A console was gathering dust beneath it, and several controllers were scattered on what looked like a secondhand couch and a threadbare armchair. Marceline picked her way through all of it and made her way back to the dining room, trying not to disturb anything as she moved.

The dining room, when Marceline entered it, took her breath away. The cabin was at the summit of the mountain, and it cast a beautiful picture when looking out from the back where giant windows let anyone see the forest beneath them. She had forgotten how vast it was as it spread out beneath the house and across the valley. On a clear day, she could stand looking out and see nothing but cerulean blue sky over a sea of green that crested and peaked for as far as the eye could see. Marceline stepped forward delicately and pressed her face to the glass, leaning against it on her forehead. Sometimes, when she lived here, she would lean on it just as she was then and pretend that she was flying over the treetops.

Back when the idea of flying seemed attainable.

Back when her emotions felt like life or death and a simple smile from the right person made her feel like she would float away.

Back when stakes were so high.

But now, well, at least she had an exceptional view of a dazzling sight.

“Freeze! KCPD! Hands on your head!” A voice called behind her. It was a little rough and authoritative, but it was also laced with a modicum of fear. Marceline grinned and lazily raised her hands to her head before gently rotating on her heels to face the man who interrupted her. He had dirty blonde hair and a messily trimmed goatee, and he stood in the doorway with a pistol raised at her center mass.

“Stay where you are!” A second, younger voice shouted from behind the man. It had the slight squeakiness of a kid on the verge of manhood. After a second, a gangly, coltish kid with white-blonde hair stepped out and pointed his own gun at her. She sighed, taking in their matching uniforms, utility belts, and standard-issue weapons.

Marceline laughed. “Not planning on going anywhere, kid,” she said and turned her head just enough to see out the windows again. “Just came for the view.”

“It’s _Officer_!” the kid snapped, to which Marceline smiled even wider and winked sideways at him.

“What are you doing here?” the older officer asked before the kid could offer a snappy retort. They shot each other annoyed glances and then turned back to Marceline, who had lowered her hands and turned her body so that she was no longer straining her neck to see out the window.

“I used to live here,” she said simply and paused, then added, “Like I said. I came for the view.”

“Yeah, well, you’re gonna have to enjoy it from the back of the squad car. We’re taking you in,” the older officer said, stowing his weapon, and stepped over to her. “You’re under arrest for breaking and entering -,”

“Whoa, whoa!” Marceline protested with a laugh, “I didn’t break anything! The door was unlocked. I didn’t think anyone lived here. I just wanted to see the old homestead.”

“Yeah, sure,” the kid said, and stepped forward holding his handcuffs in front of him like he was approaching a skittish dog. Marceline jumped forward, just a bit, and laughed when he flinched in fear.

“What’s your name?” the older officer asked. Marceline noticed he had positioned himself on the opposite side of her as his partner so that they had effectively boxed her in. At least, they thought they had her trapped.

"Marceline,” she said with wicked glee, enjoying the moment.

“Marceline _what_?” the kid asked.

“Marceline Abadeer,” she answered. She took a step toward him and watched him back up ever so slightly.

“Noooo,” the older officer breathed, and Marceline turned slowly to meet his dumbfounded gaze with a bright grin.

“What?” the younger officer asked.

“Marceline the _Vampire Queen_ ,” the older one answered reverently, which only served to make the younger officer look even more confused. Marceline looked back and forth between the two with a devilish look of mischief. A blush rose on the younger one’s cheeks, which only helped to make him look even younger. Marceline could only assume he had read Twihard, or whatever the latest Young Adult Fantasy Romance that was big at the moment, because he also straightened up when she said _Vampire_.

"Okay?" the younger officer asked and glanced at his partner expectantly.

Marceline cackled as the older officer shrugged and frowned in an expression that said, _Are you kidding me?_ "She's one of the Vampire Queens, man," he answered, incredulous.

“Yeah, y-you said that,” the young officer pointed out nervously. “Who is she?”

“Man, you never heard of The Vampire Queens?” the older officer asked, looking at his partner like he was crazy.

“No?” The young officer said it like it was a question. After a second, he lowered his handcuffs, but kept them out.

"You gotta get out more. Or listen to someone other than Taylor Swift.”

“Dude, Taylor Swift is awesome. And plus, her stuff lately hits me, like, in my soul.” The young officer got a little misty-eyed as he said it, which made Marceline laugh.

“Sorry,” she said quickly as he glared at her. “You’re just really into her. I dig it,” she added with a smirk.

“Well, The Vampire Queens are a rock band. They’ve been around for like…” the older one paused and looked curiously at Marceline. “How long your band been playing?”

Marceline grinned. “We just had our twenty-one-year anniversary. Got a cake and bought it beer and everything. You know, because it’s old enough to drink. Or join the military.”

“Damn,” he said and gave her an appraising look. “That can’t be right. You’re way too young to have been playing that long.”

Marceline’s smile brightened. “We’ve been together since we were in middle school, blaring out bad covers in our garages. So, don’t go digging my grave just yet.”

“Still. Damn.”

"You just became my new best friend,” Marceline said brightly. “Guess I’ll let you stay, then.”

“Stay?” the young officer asked.

“This house is still technically mine,” Marceline answered.

“What do you mean, ‘technically yours’?” he asked and narrowed his eyes at her.

“I own it,” Marceline clarified.

“Wait, what?” the older officer asked. “No.”

Marceline only answered by staring at him with a straight face.

“We live in a house that’s owned by a Vampire Queen?” he asked reverently.

“Yep,” Marceline answered. “So be nice and don’t try to arrest me, and I’ll let you keep living here.”

“Pretty sure that’s illegal,” the older officer said at the same time that the younger one protested, “But we have a landlord. And it’s not you.”

“Eh,” Marceline said with a shrug to both of them. “It’ll be easier for all of us if we just let this go, don’t you think? And also, I believe the term is ‘property manager.’ He does stuff for me, so I don’t have to drag my ass out here every time you clog the drain with your pretty blonde hair.”

The young officer looked like he didn’t know whether to be offended or flattered by her statement.

“Well!” Marceline exclaimed, clapped her hands together, and pointed at each of them with her clasped hands as she said, “It’s been fun! _Loved_ the handcuffs. Real good times all around. But I’ve gotta fly, so if you don’t mind…” And with that, she marched out of the room past the two officers, who looked appropriately bewildered, down the hallway, and out the front door.

"Wait!” the young officer called as Marceline reached her bike, and she turned to see him running out the door. He skidded to a stop just in time to avoid crashing into her. “Um, uh,” he paused to catch his breath. Or perhaps to catch his thoughts.

“Yeah?” Marceline prompted. She didn’t have time to wait around all day.

“Um, my name is Finn,” he said lamely.

Marceline laughed. “Hi, Finn,” she said.

“I, uh, was just wondering, um…” He paused again, looked back at his partner who was standing in the doorway with an amused look on his face, and then back at her. “Can I have your number? You know, if, um, in case we need you. While you’re in town.”

Marceline studied him, wondering who the kid was, exactly. By every account, he should have been awkward and nervous as hell. Which, he was, but he was also weirdly confident. “Yeah, sure,” she said. “Who knows? Maybe I could use a friend while I’m here.”

“Oh,” Finn said, who seemed surprised at his success. Marceline held her hand out and gestured for him to hand over his phone. Nervously, he reached into his pocket, pulled it out, and slapped it into her palm. “So, how long are you here for?” he asked while she punched her number into the glass.

“Few weeks, probably,” Marceline answered, and handed it back. “Good to meet ya, Finn. Give me a call. I might want to play some of those video games you’ve got in there.” And with that, she shoved her helmet on her head, grabbed the handles on her bike, and swung her leg over the seat. Finn and Jake stood and watched her ride off, refusing to turn back to the house until the last of the dust from her bike had settled.

++++++++++

When Marceline arrived at the nursing home, she didn’t know what to expect.

Still.

“Are you Ms. Abadeer?” the nurse asked at reception when she arrived. Marceline nodded nervously and swallowed. “He’s been asking for you,” the nurse commented, peering over a pair of oversized glasses. She was kindly looking, with a large, squashy figure and greying hair. Marceline fought the urge to reach over the desk and hug her.

But in the end, all Marceline could bring herself to do was say, “oh.” For a second, they both fell into awkward silence, waiting for the other one to speak.

“I’ll take you to him,” the nurse finally said, much to Marceline’s relief. She pushed herself up from the chair and walked slowly around the desk, motioning for her to follow.

“Um,” Marceline started to say as made their way slowly down the corridor and then fell silent. Taking a deep breath, she pushed past her nerves and asked, “How is he? I mean… I know what you guys said on the phone, but um… has he gotten any…?” she paused, unsure how to finish the question. _Worse? Better? Healthier and crazier?_

"He comes and goes,” the nurse answered vaguely. “His health is the same, if that’s what you’re asking. But his mind?” she let out a small _hmph_ and shook her head. “It’s good you came,” she said finally and gestured to a door to their right. “Here we are. I’ll leave you two alone to visit. Just press the red button on the wall if you need anything.” And without another word, she turned and walked away, leaving Marceline feeling desperately alone. For a moment, she almost called the nurse back, sure that there was no way she should be trusted to be left alone with… well, _anyone._ Much less a man who might do damage to himself. With the caution of approaching an angry bear, she finally steeled herself and gently pushed open the door.

The room was achingly small. It was nothing like the house he had owned, the place she had grown up. A hospital bed was pushed up against the far wall to create as much space as possible. A stuffed chair made of wood and upholstered with cheap vinyl was placed along the wall next to the bed, presumably for visitors to come and sit in while they watched their loved one… Marceline tore her thoughts from their current trajectory and focused on the man sitting at the small desk in the opposite corner.

He was writing fervently in a journal, his nose buried in a giant tome of a book. For a moment, Marceline just watched him. He looked older than she remembered, older than his years. His hair had gone prematurely white, and he had let it grow out past his shoulders. As he wrote, he impatiently pushed his round glasses up higher on his nose and grumbled about something she couldn’t hear. Deciding she had stared long enough, Marceline knocked gently on the door frame.

“Knock, knock,” she said lightly as she rapped her knuckles on the wood. He didn’t look up. “Simon?” she asked, a little louder.

Simon acknowledged her presence by waving a hand in the air in her general direction. “Office hours are Tuesday and Thursday from 3 to 5 pm,” he said in a bored voice that resonated of someone who had said the phrase a thousand times.

“I’m not one of your students,” Marceline said. “It’s me… It’s Marceline.”

Simon didn’t look up. Marceline stepped gently into the room, taking her time to cross it. Simon continued to read and write his notes as she walked, not speaking until she sat down next to him.

“Simon,” she said gently and let her face light up with a smile. “Hi, I’m here.” She looked down to see what he was writing and blanched.

“ _Snowflakes are gently wafting in the distant breeze. Acorns need to get to get the spinach for the flux capacitor. An office is waiting. Penguins in the distance hold my heart. Where is – ,"_

Marceline stopped reading and forced her focus back on Simon, who was still studying the book in front of him. With a furrowed brow, he sucked gently on the end of the pen and was genuinely absorbed in the text. But his notes… As she watched, he snapped his hand back to his journal to scribble, _“The princesses in the ice castle have no sweets to distract them from the parsnips. A phalange is in order.”_

Marceline’s throat tightened. _How could I have not seen it had gotten this bad?_ She shouted at herself. But even through her guilt, she knew. He had said he was fine, that the drugs were working. Every time he called, he was cheerful, reminiscent. But he called less and less. He forgot words, misappropriated meanings, and talked about people and places that didn’t exist. She had always known what was happening, and yet, he had always tried so hard to keep her from seeing it. It was the same as when she was a kid. How could she have expected him to suddenly change? The only reason she knew anything was because a nurse had contacted her, looking for his next of kin. Marceline swallowed through the knot in her throat and refused to let the tears that had gathered in her eyes fall. She could cry, she _would_ cry, but not now. Not when Simon needed her. “Simon,” she said again, and placed her hand over his.

“Betty?” he asked and turned to face her.

“No, Simon,” Marceline said gently. “Marceline, remember?”

Simon nodded, but let his gaze drift over to the rest of the room, looking for someone who wasn’t there. “Where is Betty?” he asked.

“She’s,” Marceline paused, unsure how to answer. “She’s not here, Simon.”

“ _Where is she_?” he barked and snapped his focus back to Marceline. She jumped at his ferocity but didn’t move away.

“She… left,” Marceline tried. “She, uh, had to go get something.”

“She left,” Simon said, more to himself than to Marceline. “She left a long time ago.”

"Yes,” Marceline said, a little relieved. “But I’m here now.”

Simon looked back at her. “You’re very pretty,” he stated cheerfully, like he was making a scientific observation. Marceline grinned. “You have the same color hair as my Marcy.”

“Yeah?” she asked, brightening a little. “What’s she like? Your Marcy?”

Simon’s grin was wry. “A handful,” he replied drily. “She’d jump off a bridge if I told her it was dangerous. That child will be the death of me.”

Marceline laughed. “I bet you love her anyway,” she said.

Simon barked out a laugh with her. “More than anyone. But don’t tell her I said that. She’ll march around here like the queen of the castle if she thinks I’ll let her get away with it.”

Marceline grinned. “She sounds awesome.”

“And smart, veeeery smart. Too smart for her own good if you ask me. She’s going to rule the world one day. Maybe destroy it.”

Marceline laughed even harder than before. “Sounds like a lot for a little girl.”

Simon nodded, but then looked up at Marceline in confusion. “I’m sorry,” he said, blinking. “I seem to have lost track of the time. Office hours aren’t until 3. You’ll have to come back later.”

“Oh, uh, that’s okay,” Marceline said and pulled out her phone, showing him the time. “It’s 3:23, see?”

“Oh. Huh. Oh,” Simon mumbled and nodded some more.

“But, uh, I didn’t come to talk about class.”

Simon looked up. “You didn’t?” he asked.

“No, I came here because,” Marceline said and looked around the room, finally fixing her eyes on a shelf with several board games, “I was wondering if you’d play a game with me. I don’t have anyone to play with, and well, you always like them, so…” She got up and extracted one at random off the shelf.

“Oh, yes, okay,” Simon said, his eyes lighting up just the barest hint.

“You like ‘Don’t Break the Ice’?” Marceline asked and showed him the box.

“Yes,” Simon said with a grin. “That’s a good one. Good choice.” Marceline felt her throat loosen just the smallest amount at his smile.

“Well,” she said, “I’m the champion of ‘Don’t Break the Ice,’ so fair warning. I’m planning to cream you.”

“Ha! Bring it on, my dear. Bring it on,” Simon said.


	4. The Reality of Despair

When Bonnie had taken office, the first thing she had noticed was how much space she suddenly had to work in. In college, in grad school, even at the company she had started where she had an entire lab full of assistants, she always felt a bit cramped. But here… she had walked into her office and felt like she could breathe for the first time in her life. The lab was still there, whenever she wanted to visit or tinker over something new, but the corner penthouse office given to her to run the city was _home_. She had carefully decorated it herself, with an ornate mahogany desk, dark leather chairs, and an overstuffed couch she had slept on more than a few times. A small bar was nestled in the back corner, complete with crystal decanters filled with red wine and 70-year-old scotch.

Bonnie was especially proud of the office because of how others reacted upon entering it. With its intricate engravings and powerhouse leather, the façade disquieted men and impressed women. She had deliberately chosen each piece for the very reason that it was furniture meant to empower men in the 1950’s: rich, elegant, and imposing. And when anyone walked in and saw the woman behind the desk, they were unbalanced, unsure how to proceed. It only helped that Bonnie had paired the furniture with the pastel pink paint that originally covered the walls. But whenever Finn walked into the office, she had to appreciate the look of complete awe that overtook his whole face.

“Your office is so cool,” he breathed when he arrived for an appointment to update her on the case four weeks after his first visit.

Bonnie paused as she spread the contents of the file out on her desk and grinned at Finn. “Thank you,” she said honestly, and then gestured for him to sit. He bounced on the balls of his feet nervously before plopping down in the same armchair he always took.

“Oh, yeah, thanks,” he said when she handed him a glass of water and blushed. Bonnie saw how he flinched when their fingers met and sighed internally.

“Where’s Jake?” she asked conversationally. She wasn’t surprised by his absence. Usually, when she had a briefing with one of them, the other was off on a case or patrol. It was easier for them to fly under the radar if they traded off paying her a visit.

“He’s shadowing Root Beer,” Finn answered.

Bonnie’s head snapped to attention. “Is that really his name?” she asked.

Finn laughed. “No, just a nickname his partner gave him, years ago. He’s obsessed with the stuff. Drinks it constantly. Says the sugar rush makes him a better detective. Plus, his name is Rubio, so it fit.” Finn let his eyes drift to the right and stared at the contents of the folder laid out before him, considering the detective and the things he had heard about him. For a few minutes, Bonnie worked to organize her desk in Finn’s uncharacteristic silence, until he shook his head out of his reverie and said, “But Captain Garr finally got approval to promote Jake, so he’s doing his rounds shadowing a few detectives before they give him a partner.”

“That’s great, Finn!” Bonnie said and smiled widely at him. And then suddenly, just as quickly as her cheer had appeared, it was gone, replaced with a heavy realization. “Does that mean you two won’t be partners anymore?”

Finn shrugged. “Yeah, for now. But Garr started keeping me late, making me study all this cronked up detective stuff. I think he’s planning to make me take the test as soon as regulations will let me.”

Bonnie smiled even wider than she had before. Finn noticed how it lit up her whole face and made her seem like she was a teenager. He swallowed hard and looked down at his glass of water. He was trying not to think about her dark green eyes. Or how her hair looked almost like wine in the dim, evening light. “That’s amazing, Finn! I’m so glad. I know you’ll make us all proud,” she said to his ducked head. And then, when she noticed the blush creeping up his neck and overtaking his face, she tactfully pretended she had just noticed something in one of the files that desperately needed to be re-examined. Several minutes later, when she heard him put his glass down, she looked up and was glad to see he was back to his pale self.

“Well,” Bonnie started, “Let’s get to work.”

Finn nodded. “I don’t want to keep you,” he said. “But something came up.”

“A break?” Bonnie asked hopefully.

“Maybe,” Finn said. “A body.” Bonnie’s eyes focused sharply on Finn, and he found himself stuttering as he continued, “A… a woman was found earlier today.”

“Why didn’t you call me right away?” Bonnie snapped, and then took a deep breath, calming her anger.

Finn shrunk a bit in his seat but held her gaze. “We didn’t know it was one of ours,” he said truthfully. “We thought it was just one of… a lot of murders we see every month. But…” he paused, his face frozen for just a second in a mask of revulsion and shock. “But,” he said again, “I only got called to the scene at the last minute, right before they took her to the morgue. Garr pulled me out of an assist I was giving another case. I think he suspected, but didn’t know anything for sure, which is why he didn’t tell me anything. Just gave me orders to stay on it ‘just in case.’ I didn’t know she had been strangled until about an hour ago. And I came right here.”

Bonnie sighed and nodded. “Oh, Finn,” she said sadly. “Okay, tell me everything you know.”

Finn nodded morosely and began to talk.

+++++++++

What Finn knew wasn’t much, after all. The victim, April West, was twenty-seven and a doctoral student in psychology. She had a family that she saw most nights, a boyfriend, and plenty of friends to notice if she went missing. But no one had seen anything, and as far as the cops could tell, there wasn’t much evidence at the scene. So, even with the new body supposedly offering a break, they still had nothing. Of course, they also had nothing on the man they had arrested for the killings before this, but that wasn’t stopping the prosecution. In bed hours after she had left her office, Bonnie sighed and turned on her side, frustration resounding in her head like a cacophony of fear. All her briefing with Finn had done was give her a solid dose of anxiety while she tried to sleep. She wondered if she would have to come out in front of this publicly, though she hoped she wouldn’t. If she issued a statement that there was a potential serial killer on the loose, she was afraid the people would panic. And worse, the killer would know he was being hunted, which would give him a good chance to go underground.

She had, of course, tried to call in the feds. But because there was no official investigation for a connection between the cases, a suspect was in custody, and the killer didn’t seem to be crossing state lines, there wasn’t much they were willing to do. All it seemed they _could_ do for the time being was wait. Wait for the killer to surface. Wait for him to make a mistake. Wait for more girls to die.

Finn’s face swam in Bonnie’s vision, his expression haunted by whatever he had seen.

“What is it?” she had asked. He had shaken his head, but Bonnie had insisted. “Tell me, Finn. Whatever it is, I need to know.”

Finn had shuddered, unable to meet her gaze. But she sat in the silence, staring him down until he couldn’t take it anymore, and he gave in. “It’s just… It’s the first time I’ve seen… I mean… Whenever I’ve gone to a scene, I’m always on the fringes. Setting up the perimeter, taking statements, keeping the scene clear. I don’t – I’m not – I…” He stopped talking again and let the weight of the room settle.

“This was your first dead body,” Bonnie interrupted his pregnant silence. Finn nodded and kept his gaze in his lap. “The first one is the hardest,” Bonnie found herself saying. “It’s the one that sticks with you the most.” Finn nodded again but didn’t ask how she knew. “The details… are they stuck in your brain?”

Finn let out a single panicky laugh. “Seared like a brand in my vision pan,” he said. “I can’t get it out.”

“Good. Tell me everything. Every detail you want gone. I’ll carry it for you.”

Finn had looked up, a little bit of shock on his face, and then smiled ever so slightly. “Her leg was broken,” he started warily, and then picked up speed. “It was stuck at a weird angle. It didn’t…” he cleared his throat, braced himself, and continued. “It was sticking out from her body at a weird angle. She was lying face up, her eyes wide open. They were red, like she’d been up all night drinking, or crying, or… or something. She…” he paused, looked down, and then back up to meet Bonnie’s gaze. “It wasn’t like the movies,” he said gravely.

Bonnie nodded and held his gaze in her own. “No,” she said. “It’s not.”

A tear dripped from Finn’s eye, which he ignored. Instead, he sniffed, squared his shoulders, and continued to describe the scene in full detail once more. With every sentence, he sat up straighter and spoke more calmly, as if a weight was slowly being lifted from his chest. Bearing up under it, Bonnie had pulled it onto herself, adding it to her constant worry for her people and the city she loved. The city she had once vowed to protect.

It wasn’t until she lay in bed that night, holding a silent vigil for the girl who had fought so hard she broke her own leg, who had been robbed of the ability to scream, who had left the earth terrified and crushed by the weight of a man who had invaded her body and soul, that Bonnie realized just what she had taken on. 

A car drove past blaring a familiar melody, a sweet voice singing, _With the heart of devotion, we will never be_. One second there, and then it faded into the night. An ache began in Bonnie’s chest, crushing her into the mattress. She pulled her pillow onto her face and screamed.

++++++++++

Marceline sometimes liked to play poker without looking at her cards. It was a tactic she had learned years before as a way to practice bluffing. If she didn’t know her hand, she was free to believe that she had pocket aces and bet accordingly. She found that it was a surprisingly solid technique if she didn’t do it too often. Just enough to keep her opponents guessing.

“I raise you twenty,” she said and daintily moved two blue chips to the spot in front of her stack. Finn grabbed his cards and looked at them nervously, and then slapped them back on the table. He stared at his chips for a solid thirty seconds and sighed. Marceline could only assume he was doing some mental math.

“Call,” he said, suddenly cool as he threw down two reds and a blue. Marceline raised an eyebrow at him with a smirk and turned to Jake.

“Man, I don’t like this game,” he whined and threw down his hand. “I fold.” Marceline grinned even wider. With a loud scrape, Jake stood up, pushing his chair back and stomped out of the room into the kitchen.

“Get me a beer while you’re up!” Marceline called after him and then turned her attention back to the sweating Finn. Jake grunted in reply from the kitchen while Finn pulled the pot together and pushed the chips to the side.

As Finn watched with darting eyes, Marceline burned a card and turned over the river. She heard his gasp, and then a sigh, and then he picked up his cards and looked at them again. She watched as he tried to sort through the values, counting in his head, and she knew she had him. It didn’t even take much. She just gave him a hint of a smile, looked at her chips, and as he listened in abject horror, said, “I raise you fifty.”

Finn looked like he wanted to call, if for no other reason than to see what she had. He swallowed, narrowed his eyes at her, looked at his cards, and played with his chips. Marceline watched stoically. Jake sauntered back into the room, two beers and a soda in his hand, and placed a bottle in front of Marceline. She didn’t move her gaze away from Finn.

“Who’s winning?” Jake asked drily and placed a bottle in front of his partner.

No one bothered to answer. Jake let out a laugh as he let his gaze wander between the two and took a sip from his beer. “Just fold, man,” he finally told Finn after watching the fidgeting go on for a minute. “You’ve already lost the hand. Don’t draw it out for the rest of us. We have…” he paused and yawned deeply, covering his mouth with the back of his hand as he stretched, “work in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Finn replied morosely. “I know. I just… how did you beat me every time?” he asked, simultaneously awed and annoyed. Marceline grinned and wordlessly began to sweep the pot of chips toward herself with her hands.

“You really wanna know?” she asked.

“Yes,” Finn admitted and took a petulant sip from his soda.

“I have superpowers,” she answered simply. Finn and Jake groaned loudly in unison.

“Lame!” Finn said while Jake threw a slipper at her head. It bounced off her hair and tumbled to the floor.

“It’s true,” Marceline said through a laugh. “I can read your mind and turn invisible.”

“You also have x-ray vision and the ability to fly?” Finn asked sarcastically.

“Yo! Don’t call out all my powers! The government can hear you through your phone!” Marceline cried in mock fear.

Jake blew a raspberry and gave her an exaggerated thumbs down.

“Well,” she snapped and tossed her hair, “If the men in black come crashing through my door tonight and haul me off to an underground bunker to study me, just know that I’ll be back to haunt you for all eternity.”

Finn laughed and threw Jake’s other slipper at her. “You’d be an awesome ghost friend,” he said. “We could totally use you at parties! And you’d make an AWEsome cop! Just think, all the places you could float around and find things out, without us having to do a thing!”

“Mmm… there’s a little law we kind of have to abide by,” Jake mused, “called physics. I’m not sure even Marceline the Vampire Queen of the Dead could break it. I mean, if a ghost cop were possible, I’m pretty sure we’d be using one by now.”

“How do you know we’re not?” Finn asked, suddenly serious. “Maybe it’s above our paygrade.”

“Oooh, conspiracy!” Jake whispered in mock excitement.

Marceline laughed. “In that case, I will definitely haunt you.”

“Well, if we’re done, I’m gonna go pee,” Finn announced and hopped up with the same nervous energy he’d had during the game.

“Have you been holding it this whole time?” Marceline asked.

“I just didn’t want you to look at my cards!” Finn shouted and ran out of the room to the sound of Marceline and Jake’s laughter. In the silence that followed, Marceline sighed and took a sip of her beer. It was nice to have friends again, to have a place to go when she was bored, or lonely, or both.

“Hey, uh, Marceline,” Jake said quietly when he was sure Finn was gone.

Marceline started, and then looked up and backward at him over her shoulder, raising her eyebrows. Jake had propped his elbows on the table and was holding his folded hands in front of his face, like he was desperate to say something. “What’s up, buttercup?” she asked.

“I was wondering if you could help Finn out with something,” he said conspiratorially.

Marceline dropped her foot off the chair she was resting it on and turned to face him properly. “I’m listening,” she said.

“We have a thing to go to this weekend, a fundraiser for the city.”

“Fancy,” Marceline commented. “Continue.”

“Well, Finn grew a pair of massive balls and asked Mayor Brooks to be his date.”

“Mayor Brooks?” Marceline asked suspiciously. _No. It couldn’t be. There’s no way_ , she thought.

“Yeah, Bonnie Brooks. Young, red hair, super genius that basically saved the town with some big invention that helped her start a company. You heard of her?”

At his words, Marceline’s heart began to pound viciously against the inside of her ribcage. Blood reverberated through her bones and pulsed in her ears. Buying for time and hoping it would slow her heart rate, she took a long draw from her beer. “Yeah,” she said when she could speak again, and placed the bottle down on the wooden table with a clatter. “Sounds familiar.”

“So,” Jake continued, and Marceline was relieved when he didn’t seem to notice her change in demeanor, “she said no.”

Marceline couldn’t help it; a single laugh escaped from her throat before she regained control. “Sorry,” she said, still trying to suppress her smile. “It’s not funny. It’s just… Isn’t she, like, too old for Finn?”

“Yeeeeah,” Jake said slowly and rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s what she said. I think she was trying to let him down gently, but it still kinda crushed him.”

“Poor Finn,” Marceline mused, but managed to keep pity out of her voice. If anyone could handle rejection like a champ, it was Finn. “So, what do you want me to do?” she asked. Jake grinned at her.

“We want you to make her jealous.”

Marceline blanched, sure that Jake couldn’t possibly know. But then, she realized what he was asking, and she grinned back. The irony of the very idea was too great to let the opportunity pass, and before she knew it, she was nodding.

“You want me to go with Finn as his hot Rockstar date to make Bonnibel Brooks jealous?” Marceline asked, cocking an eyebrow. She leaned back and placed her foot on the base of Jake’s chair, amused.

“Yeah?” he said, framing it like a question.

“Okay,” she said simply and took another sip of her beer.

“Wait, really?” Finn asked from the doorway. Marceline looked up and winked at him. “You’ll help us?”

“Yeah,” she said and shrugged. “Sounds fun. Plus, I think it’ll be funny.”

“Yeah!” Finn exclaimed and reached over to high five her. Marceline obliged with a wry smile and watched his excitement. “We’re gonna have so much fun now that you’re coming!” he shouted and sat down on the edge of his seat.

“Yaaaay!” a small voice cheered from behind them. Startled, Marceline whipped around and stared straight into the almond-shaped brown eyes of a knobby-kneed androgenous urchin who was dancing through the living room and taking up Finn’s cheer. A mop of short, straight black hair bounced on their head as they danced. “I love having fun!” the kid exclaimed. Marceline, who was terrible at guessing ages, could only estimate that they were somewhere between five and twelve years old. And that was mostly based on the turquoise pajamas they wore with unicorns and silver stars.

“Beemo!” Jake barked. “You’re supposed to be in bed!”

“But I heard Finn cheering and I wanted to celebrate!” Beemo argued, pausing mid-dance, both fists and one leg held aloft, and offered up a genuine smile. Marceline couldn’t help it; she had to smile with the kid. The pull of their cheer was irresistible.

“Who is this nugget?” she asked, grinning back at Finn and Jake, who were wearing identical bemused expressions.

“That,” Jake said with mock anger and locked eyes with the kid, “is someone who will never see the light of a TV again if they don’t get back into bed.”

The urchin wilted. “I just wanted to meet your friend,” they said with such despondent gloom that Marceline melted too. Doing her best to look anguished, she turned her eyes to Jake and frowned in empathetic misery.

“Come on, Jake,” Marceline said piteously. “Can you really blame them?”

“Yes,” Jake answered grumpily.

“Please,” Marceline begged. “I could really use a new friend right now.”

Jake slowly closed his eyes and sighed heavily. “Marceline, this is Beemo,” he said tiredly. “You get _five_ minutes!”

“Yaaaay!” Beemo cheered and began to run in circles around the coffee table, which made Marceline laugh and both Finn and Jake groan. They ended their victory lap by launching straight into Marceline’s lap and hugging her tight.

“Beemo, huh?” Marceline asked as she held them. They pulled back from the hug and looked into her eyes with instant friendship and nodded cheerfully.

“It’s not my forever name,” Beemo said. “It’s just what Finn and Jake call me. It’s all of my initials.”

“B, M, and O?” Marceline asked. Beemo nodded. “What does it stand for?”

“Bridget Marie Ong. It’s what they called me at the orphanage before my parents came to pick me up.” Marceline tried not to let her surprise show at how forthright the statement was. And she must have succeeded, because Beemo continued, “They didn’t know who I was yet, which is why they named me Bridget. They thought I was a girl. It’s okay, I didn’t know who I was then either. But I waited and waited, because I knew they were coming for me and then one day the sun granted them permission and told them where to find me and they went on a journey over the ocean! And they looked under beds and in trees and mountains and lakes and restaurants and cars and rivers and churches and schools, and then finally they looked in the orphanage and I was waiting for them and they picked me up and we went home!”

As Beemo spoke, their little eyebrows moved in waves, cresting and peaking on their forehead as they spoke about all the places their parents had to go to find them, and ended with them raised in sheer joy as they finished. Marceline grinned widely in what she knew was the first moment of true warmth she had felt in months. “Are Finn and Jake your parents?” she asked.

Simultaneously, Finn, Jake, and Beemo all burst into laughter.

“No!” Beemo exclaimed, “They’re my brothers! Our parents -,” but they stopped abruptly and looked down, suddenly forlorn. It was all Marceline needed to hear to know what had happened.

“Hey,” she whispered, and Beemo looked up at her. Seeing the expression on Marceline’s face, they leaned forward to press their forehead against hers, “I really needed a bedtime story. That was great.”

“Thanks,” Beemo whispered back.

“Do you want me to tuck you in, so you don’t get in trouble?” Marceline asked, still whispering. Beemo nodded. “Okay,” Marceline replied and gave Beemo a light tap on their back. “Let’s go.”

Beemo hopped off Marceline’s lap and ran out of the room, the sound of their laughter echoing down the hallway. She glanced back at Finn and Jake and saw that they both had content expressions on their faces. “Thank you,” Jake said gruffly and nodded in her direction. Marceline tilted her head at them and followed Beemo down the hallway, following the odd sound of their jaunty and slightly nonsensical singing to a small bedroom that she had once used as a music room. Posters of a few pop bands, popular video games, and unicorns plastered the walls. On the far end of the room, Beemo had burrowed into a nest made of blankets and stuffed animals and was waiting for Marceline expectantly.

“Are you going to tell me a story?” Beemo asked. Marceline laughed softly and sat on the bed next to them.

“I don’t really know any,” she admitted. “But I know a few songs.”

“Yay! A song!” Beemo cheered, clapping. “I want to hear a song!”

“I know a couple of lullabies,” Marceline said, silently reviewing a few slower classic rock ballads she had memorized.

Beemo shook their head vigorously. “No! A song from a secret friend should not be a lullaby! I want a _secret_ song!”

“A secret song,” Marceline echoed, unsure what they meant.

“Yes, a song that is a secret. A song that no one knows about.” Beemo beamed up at Marceline as they said it, impishly proud at having thought of such a sly request.

Marceline stroked her chin with a finger and thought. _Everything Stays_ came to mind first, which she immediately dismissed. Some things were meant to stay hidden. But when a new idea formed, it was almost worse.

“Hm,” she mused softly, already regretting her decision. “If I sing you a secret song, one no one has _ever_ heard before, can I trust you to keep it a secret?”

“Yes, you can trust me,” Beemo said gravely, sensing the seriousness of the request. “I promise I will never sing the secret song to anyone except myself.”

“Well,” Marceline said, deflating a little, “I sup _pose_ , if someone _really_ needed it, that would also be okay. But you can’t tell them where you learned it. It’s still a secret song, remember?”

Beemo grinned and nodded. “I will keep the secret. Will you tell me the story of the song?”

Marceline sighed and looked up. “Once, a long time ago,” she began, “I had a friend. A very best friend.”

“Best friends are the best!” Beemo commented.

Marceline nodded sincerely. “Yeah, they really are. And this one… She was the best of the best. We did everything together. We… sang together and played games together and whenever she needed to work, I would hang out and play music for her. Whenever I needed to go anywhere boring, I always wanted her to go with me. Because she always made me laugh, you know? No matter what. Whenever we were together, it didn’t matter what we did, because it was like an adventure. She made everything fun. I never got bored when I was with her.” Marceline paused and looked down at Beemo’s beaming face, already regretting telling them this story. “But one day…” she paused, suddenly unsure how much of the truth to reveal, “Well, sometimes, when you… when you spend a lot of time with someone, you can make them angry pretty easily. All best friends fight, and one day, we got in a fight.”

Suddenly, Marceline froze, choking on the words. Her throat, tightened and paralyzed, would not let her continue. She turned away and swiped at the tears gathering in her eyes, sniffling when she turned back. Beemo met her gaze with her own solemn expression. Marceline cleared her throat, then took a deep breath, and smiled through her tears. “I wrote this song after. To… Well, because I…” but she couldn’t continue, so she paused and let the thought hang unfinished between them. Beemo reached out and placed their hand on her arm, and it was all she needed.

“So,” she said, letting a fresh tear drip from the end of her chin, “This is a secret song, so that you know that nothing is really over. Even if it’s ended.”

Beemo held her gaze and pulled their legs up, then wrapped their arms around their knees, waiting patiently. Marceline took a breath and began, warmed by their resolute attention.

_Time is an illusion_

_That helps things make sense_

_So we are always living_

_In the present tense_

_This seems unforgiving_

_When a good thing ends_

_But you and I will always be back then_

_You and I will always be back then_

_Singing_

_Will happen, happening, happened_

_Will happen, happening, happened_

_And will happen, again and again_

_‘Cause you and I will always be back then_

_Yes, you and I will always be back then_

_If there was some amazing force outside of time_

_To take us back to where we were_

_And hang each moment up_

_Like pictures on the wall_

_Inside a billion tiny frames so that_

_We can see it all, all, all_

_It would look like_

_Will happen, happening, happened_

_Will happen, happening, happened_

_And there we are, again and again_

_‘Cause you and I will always be back then_

_You and I will always be back then_

_Will happen, happening, happened_

_Will happen, happening, happened_

_And there we are, again and again_

_‘Cause you and I will always be back then_

_You and I will always be back then_

_You and I will always be back then_

_You and I will always be back then_

_That’s why_

_You and I will always be best friends_

Marceline’s voice rang clear and sweet through the room, the silence from Beemo only serving to carry it to every corner. As she sang, the little urchin slowly laid back into their bed, pulled down by the weight of the song, but never closed their eyes. When Marceline sang the last word, letting the silence ring after the final note, Beemo reached out and grabbed her hand. Marceline held the warmth of it in hers and felt a steady drip trickle down her cheeks, landing on her collar, soaking her shirt. Beemo held her gaze for a moment, matching tears leaving tracks on their delicate face. 


	5. A Short Story about Friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It feels weird posting without saying something here. Oh, Notes section, you taunt me. Shall I impart wisdom? Thank my readers? Share the random thoughts I have while washing my hair, like: Isn't reading just staring at symbols on a piece of paper for hours on end while vividly hallucinating? 
> 
> I suppose I shall go with two of the three. Thank you, readers. You are wonderfully kind. And very insightful.

_Sixteen Years Earlier_

Marceline felt a trickle of sweat drip down her back and pool at the waist of her pants. It tickled furiously, but she tried hard to ignore it as she played. The crowd was singing along as she accompanied it on her red axe bass. The song was an oldie, but a goodie, and a shiver ran up her spine to the sound of hundreds of voices singing in out-of-tune harmony, like a gloriously oversized drunken choir. Somehow, it gave her that sense of… belonging. For one gratifying, sweat-soaked, high-inducing, finger-banging second, she was part of something much bigger than herself.

“Yeah!” she shouted to the crowd, and they responded with an even louder cheer. “You guys are _such_ good singers! You should be in a band or something!” More cheering. Marceline smiled wickedly and leaned into the microphone. “Now,” she said in a low voice, her fingers still working the bass, “This is the last verse. I _knoooooow_ you know it. Or at least, your crazy-obsessive friends that dragged you here today know it -,” hundreds of voices laughed and cheered, “because this verse wasn’t in the version they released on the radio.” Boos clashed with the cheers. “Assholes,” she growled for good measure, and they were back to laughing. “So, my crazy cult-fanatic followers, it’s up to you to carry this. You up for the challenge?” The crowd roared, a beat picking up as they stomped their feet and banged on their thighs. “Good, ‘cause my throat is getting a little sore and I need your help. So, when I play, you sing as loud as you can!” More cheers in agreement. “And let me just tell you, I’m gonna be hella disappointed if at least four more squad cars don’t show up to shut us down. It’s gotta be that loud. You with me?” Roars and whistles. “Here we go!”

Five minutes later, and Marceline sauntered off the stage to sheer pandemonium. As soon as she was behind the barrier that hid them from view of the crowd, however, she immediately collapsed into a folding chair that was waiting for her. “Oh my God,” she said, exhausted, as the rest of the band filed into the small area. They were playing in an outdoor venue under a pavilion stage, and the cool breeze on her forehead was the only thing that kept her from dying.

“I need a glass of water,” Keila gasped and collapsed at Marceline’s feet. Marceline sat up and began to run her fingers through Keila’s thick, glossy hair. Within seconds, she was purring contentedly and rubbing her face on Marceline’s knee, making them both laugh. Guy staggered to another chair and fell, head-first, into its seat. With a grunt, she squirmed and shook her limbs until she was draped sideways over it, butt in the air, with her head and feet on the ground.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” their stage manager said to Guy’s proffered ass. He was new, young, and had the rabbity energy of someone who thought the band might eat him alive. He would not have been wrong. “Encore in thirty seconds.”

There was a collective groan from the band as they shifted uncomfortably. But Marceline couldn’t hate the crowd for the encore. Honestly, it was her favorite part of the night. It was how she could tell how the performance went. If the crowd didn’t shut up, if they kept banging their feet and clapping and cheering, if they shouted themselves hoarse and didn’t give up until the band was back onstage, then she knew it was a good night. If the cheering died down, however, then she also had an answer.

Tonight, the crowd only got louder and more persistent. Marceline carefully extricated herself from Keila, who had begun to crawl into her lap, and sidled to the very edge of the barrier. She looked surreptitiously out at the crowd. “Listen to that,” she said warmly as she gazed at her fans, all who wanted her love and attention.

“Nothing like it,” Keila mused and grinned at her.

“Well, pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er,” Guy said in a Canadian accent and brushed past them, gulping from a plastic water bottle. Marceline laughed and followed her out. They had played a show in Canada the month before, and Guy had become obsessed with several obnoxious phrases. And yet, somehow, the more she used them, the funnier they became. As Marceline stepped back onstage, she was met with a tumultuous uproar.

“Did you miss us?” Marceline greeted them and grinned. It was bliss.

++++++++++

"What’s your name?” Keila asked sweetly. She grinned like a muppet and looked down at the little girl who was next in line for an autograph at the end of the night. The little girl, whose hair was dirty blonde and hanging loose in beachy waves, glared back. Marceline didn’t blame her. She was wearing denim shorts and a leather jacket and looked like she would bite anyone that pissed her off. It was the kind of kid she loved to see at her concerts.

“Fuck off,” the little girl snarled and stomped toward Marceline, who could only laugh at Keila’s confused expression.

“Great name,” Marceline quipped when the kid was in front of her. But she shot her a genuine smile, took her poster, and started to sign it. “Dear Fuck Off,” she read aloud as she wrote, “Your parents named you well.” Fuck Off laughed, and Marceline winked at her. “You play any instruments?” she asked.

“Yes,” she said, beaming. “I used to play the ukulele, but now I’m learning the bass.”

“Just like me,” Marceline said. “I started with the ukulele too.”

“You did?” Fuck Off beamed.

“Yeah. I still bust it out sometimes, too. When I’m feeling smushy and cuddly.”

Fuck Off laughed, and then asked, “Will you play it the next time you come here?”

Marceline paused and thought for a second. “You know what, I will. Because you asked.” She may as well have said she was adopting Fuck Off, for all that the kid perked up. Marceline handed back her poster, and the girl started to float away. But when Marceline called out, “Hey yo! What’s your real name?” she stopped and turned.

“Amelia,” she said, and sprinted away like she was being chased.

Marceline snorted to herself at how weird kids could be, and then swung her eyes back to the line, only to be met with the image of a familiar black t-shirt. It belonged to an old indie rock band she used to love, _The Aftermath_ , and the image was the cover from their third album. Two anthropomorphic marshmallows were skewered on stakes that were entwined by a snake. “Huh,” she said without thinking. “I used to have a shirt just like that.”

“This one exactly,” a high, sweet voice like a bell rang out. Marceline ran her eyes up to gaze at the owner of the voice and was met with a pair of dark green eyes. Paired with her strawberry blonde hair, Irish-pale skin, and light freckles that sprinkled a delicate, slightly upturned nose, Marceline was instantly reminded of old folk tales about trickster fairies who took the appearance of beautiful girls to lure unsuspecting victims away from their homes. Marceline noticed that part of her Fae quality was accentuated by the fact that her hair cascaded down her shoulders and looked pink in the darkening light. But it was her expression, most of all, that Marceline found enchanting. She wore a luminescent smile that lit up her entire face, which Marceline could feel pulling at her exhaustion, waking her up, and leaving her feeling ready to take on anything.

Unintentionally, Marceline smirked. “Gotta say, it does look better on you anyway,” she said with a smoothness that she didn’t feel. Her heart thumped heavily in her chest while the girl giggled nervously, her laughter ringing like a chime.

“I thought you might ask for it back,” the pink-haired fairy said.

“And what would you do if I did?” Marceline asked in a low voice. She let her gaze wander down to the shirt and back up again to her eyes. Pink began creeping up the fairy’s cheeks as she watched the direction of Marceline’s gaze. Keenly, Marceline noticed that she was one of those rare unicorns who actually looked prettier when blushing. That is, instead of like an angry tomato, which was how Keila described Marceline whenever she started to turn red. _I already hate her just for that_ , she thought.

“I suppose I’d just have to steal it then,” the fairy answered, but as her cheeks deepened in color, they gave her away. “I’m Bonnie,” she added.

“Bonnie,” Marceline echoed. “Pretty name. Is it short for anything?”

Bonnie cleared her throat and looked away at something in the distance. When she did, her gaze took on an intensity, like she was looking through all the people nearby to focus on something Marceline couldn’t see. Almost like she was analyzing something beautiful. “Bonnibel,” she answered begrudgingly.

“Bon-ni-bel,” Marceline said slowly, enunciating each syllable. “I like it even better than Bonnie.” Bonnibel smiled and met her eyes again. “So, Bonnibel,” Marceline continued, “what do you have for me to sign?”

Bonnibel took a step closer and in one smooth movement, reached up and pulled her hair around the back of her head and over one shoulder, exposing her neck. She leaned her head to the side and turned her body so that her exposed skin was closest to Marceline. “I didn’t bring anything with me, so I thought you could just sign me.”

Marceline’s own skin responded by tingling. The air between them was suddenly thick and substantial, almost fragrant, even. With the skill of years of practice, she forced herself to step forward calmly, brought her marker up, and placed the tip gently on Bonnibel’s porcelain collarbone. After only a second’s hesitation, she also let her palm rest on her shoulder. While she slowly signed her name, she took in the graceful curve of Bonnibel’s neck, the sharp lines on her jaw, and the divot where her throat met her clavicle. As she inhaled, she smelled sweet perfume, which had a bit of a candylike quality to it. “There,” she said and pulled her hand away, stepping back. “Now I guess you’ll have a mark of me forever.”

Bonnibel grinned and turned to face Marceline again. “Forever, huh?” she asked. “I like the sound of that. What should I give you in return?”

“If I ask for my shirt back, will you take it off right here?” Marceline suggested cheekily. Bonnibel laughed, and Marceline realized she liked the sound. It reminded her of how it felt to listen to music.

“I’ll have nothing to wear back. I might get pulled over,” she replied.

Marceline shrugged and smirked as if to say, _Oh well_. “Had to try,” she said.

“I could buy you a drink instead. You know, as a thank-you for the shirt. And the autograph.”

Marceline looked around at the impatient line of fans queued up behind Bonnibel. Another minute of waiting, and there could be a riot. But then again, Keila and Guy were looking a bit tired, and it _was_ getting late. Around them, vendors had begun to pack up their shops and shut down their stalls. “I think I better be the one to get you a drink,” Marceline said and gestured with a toss of her hair for Bonnibel to follow her. They walked away to the sounds of a few people booing, but Marceline couldn’t bring herself to care.

Ten minutes later, they were comfortably loitering near a vendor’s stall. Marceline watched carefully as the vendor, a middle-aged man with a pudgy waistline in Dad jeans, carefully packed up bottles of beer and wine. “You guys must be exhausted,” Bonnibel noted quietly as they lurked in the shadows. “A new city every other day. With rehearsals, sound checks, packing and unpacking. I don’t know how you do it. Coming from an over-achiever, that’s saying something.”

Marceline’s eyes glinted as she looked Bonnibel over. “It is,” she admitted. “It’s… a lot of hard work. No sleep, endless days of playing, writing, hauling gear. I don’t think I’ve eaten a real meal in…” she paused and looked up, doing some mental math, “three weeks. Even longer since I’ve had a vegetable. We just snack on Doritos and Gatorade and hope it’s enough to keep us alive. _And_! We’re all together. All. The. _Time_.” Marceline’s voice cracked as she punctuated the last word. She emphasized the thought by bringing her hands up in front of her face and pulling them into fists as she continued, “I mean, I love those morons, but do you know how hard it is to be with someone _literally_ 24/7? I never thought I could love a pair so much and want to kill them so badly at the exact. Same. Time! Anyone who _chooses_ this kind of life has to be absolutely, 100 percent, bat-shit _in_ sane!”

Bonnibel laughed at the impassioned and desperate look on Marceline’s face, who was suddenly out of breath and trying not to shout. “So, you love it?” Bonnibel prompted.

“Would die before I gave it up,” Marceline said straight-faced, and then let out a scoffing snort. “I don’t need to poop, anyway.” Bonnibel laughed in surprise. When she did, she ducked her head and leaned with one hand against the post they were standing under, pressing her other hand to her chest. Marceline watched her, enjoying her success.

“Where are you from?” Marceline asked when Bonnibel had recovered.

“Hm,” Bonnibel responded contentedly. “Right now? New York. I go to school there. But I moved around a lot as a kid. Never really settled.”

“New York,” Marceline echoed. “So, you drove all this way to see one of our concerts and you didn’t pack another shirt?” Bonnibel snorted at Marceline’s question and shook her head.

“I drove an hour for your concert. The other five I drove for an interview.”

Marceline cocked an eyebrow and gave her an appraising look. With Bonnibel’s large eyes and babyish cheeks, she couldn’t have been older than eighteen. She looked even younger when she smiled. “An interview? For college or something?”

Bonnibel grinned shyly. “Grad school,” she replied. “I applied to a few places, but I’m looking at Hopkins tomorrow. I, uh, found out about the concert the day after I scheduled my interview, and I just decided to come a little early.”

Marceline didn’t have to try to look impressed. “How old _are_ you?” she asked, suddenly wondering if she was hitting on a secret cougar.

Bonnibel’s smile widened as she looked away to take stock of the vendor. When she glanced sideways at Marceline, there was a mischievous glint in her eye. “Nineteen,” she finally answered. “I graduated from high school a couple years early.”

“I’ll say,” Marceline huffed cheerfully. She folded her arms, leaned back against the post, and looked up at the stars. “So, what are you studying in this fancy grad school of yours? You gonna become a doctor and cure cancer?”

“Maybe,” Bonnibel replied with a shrug. “I’m going for a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology.”

“Ooh,” Marceline replied dramatically, bringing her fingers to her chest and dipping down in a half curtsey. “You’re going to be like, the Queen of the Scientists, then.”

“Nah, I’d never take your title of Queen away,” Bonnibel retorted.

“Good to know you’re loyal. For that, I bequeath unto thee the title of Princess,” Marceline said regally and used her hand as a pretend sword that she touched onto each of Bonnibel’s shoulders. Their laughter rang through the crisp air. “So, you settled on Baltimore, then?” Marceline asked after they fell silent.

Bonnibel shook her head. “I’m also thinking about UCLA and University of Michigan.”

“What? No _Harvard?_ No _Yale?_ ” Marceline gasped and clutched her chest.

Bonnibel giggled and rolled her eyes. “No,” she said, “It’s not like TV. Just because you’re good doesn’t mean you can afford every fancy university. Hopkins and the others are offering to pay me if I do some work for them.”

Marceline cocked an eyebrow and grinned. “I’d think someone as prim and bougie as you wouldn’t need to worry about that. Don’t you have family that -,”

“No,” Bonnibel said with a biting voice. “I don’t.” 

“Oh, I – I’m sorry,” Marceline said soberly. She straightened up to face her properly. “I didn’t mean to -,”

“It’s okay,” Bonnibel interrupted, suddenly apologetic. “It’s a long story, and you didn’t know.” She laughed wistfully and stared off to the right, her tongue playing at the edge of her teeth. Marceline might have tried to say something to smooth out the awkwardness, to make it better, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw the pudgy vendor shuffle away from his boxes.

Marceline tapped Bonnibel lightly on the arm with the back of her hand. “Go time,” she said softly, and together they stalked silently out of the shadows. It was easy, in the end. A few steps, a quick work of their hands, and within seconds they were away, giggling madly in the darkness as they skipped off to the lawn behind the orchestra seating section.

“Technically, this isn’t buying me a drink,” Bonnibel said as they reclined on the chilling grass and sipped their pilfered beer.

Marceline tipped her bottle in Bonnibel’s direction. “Next time,” she said and watched Bonnibel fight a smile.

“You say that like you know how to find me,” Bonnibel said after a moment. “Guess I’ll just have to get tickets to the show the next time you’re in town. Oh _nooooo_. That’ll be… the worst. Just _terrible_.”

Marceline smiled, her lips still on her bottle, and exhaled sharply. Bonnibel glanced her way and responded with a sweet, shy smile of her own. “Guess you’ll just take one for the team,” Marceline said. “Or…” but she didn’t quite know how to finish the thought that was forming. _It’s a bad idea, Marceline. A reckless, terrible, no good, absolutely insane idea._ But Bonnibel straightened, brightened at that one word, and before she knew what she was doing or how to talk herself out of it, she said, “You could come see me. You know, when you’re in LA for that fancy school interview. And… I could buy you a drink. For real this time.”

Bonnibel placed one arm behind her and leaned back, looked up at the stars and asked, “My interview is in three weeks. Will you even be in LA by then?” Her eyes darted back to Marceline, her lips pressed tightly together.

Marceline grinned. “Yeah,” she said, “we go back in two weeks. I could, um, I could meet you. You know,” she flapped her hand in Bonnibel’s direction, “whenever you have a few hours.”

Bonnibel exhaled slowly through her nose. “Yeah, I could do that,” she said carefully.

_Do you want a stalker? Because this is how you get a stalker!_ The voice in Marceline’s head continued to shout. But instead of backing out, Marceline just said, “We’ll, uh, celebrate. You know, you getting into the school you… want?” It came out like a question, one Marceline couldn’t bring herself to ask. Suggesting something she couldn’t allow herself to hope for.

“Sounds like a plan,” Bonnibel said and Marceline felt something lift in her chest.

“Hey!” a voice called out of the darkness as a light danced over Bonnibel’s face, sending her ducking and squinting. “This area’s supposed to be closed!”

“Shit!” Marceline squealed, “It’s the fuzz! They found us!” She lurched over and grabbed the front of Bonnibel’s shirt in her fist and hauled her to her feet. “ _Run!_ ” she ordered. Then she grabbed Bonnibel’s wrist and they were off, laughing wildly as they careened and zigzagged out of the grassy area, away from the rent-a-cop, who did absolutely nothing to chase them.

Gasping for breath from laughter and their mad dash, they slowed to a stop several minutes later by the tour bus in the parking lot, each clutching their sides with one hand and their contraband beer in the other. “I… think… we… lost… him,” Bonnie wheezed as she tried not to howl with more laughter.

“You sure about that? He might call the feds on us,” Marceline retorted and pressed her back up against the bus. Dramatically, she glanced around the corner to see if the offending guard was gone. When she looked back, she met Bonnibel’s amused gaze with her own. “Better stay here for a while. Hide out. Go to ground. Just until the threat has passed.”

“Or at least until my beer is finished,” Bonnibel said.

Marceline raised her own beer in a toast and, in one swift movement, chugged the remainder. With a gasp, she swiped the back of her hand across her lip and burped. “Guess it’s a great time for me to mention I also nabbed a couple cans of wine, while I was at it,” she added as she put the bottle down, and then pulled the promised drinks from a pocket inside her jacket.

Bonnibel laughed and leaned back against the bus. “Where did you hide those?” she asked.

“I am a girl of many talents.”

“Well, that’s definitely true. No beverage is safe around you.”

“Hide yo’ kids; hide yo’ wives,” Marceline sang.

“Hide yo’ shitty pinot wine,” Bonnibel added.

Fifteen minutes later and they had found a couple of collapsible camping chairs in the bus. Or rather, Marceline tried to convince Bonnibel to hang out inside the bus, but when the latter refused to give up the sight of the stars, claiming, “We can’t see them in New York!” she relented and went looking. Together, they drank and watched the crew loading the equipment, offering unhelpful advice like, “Lift from your back!” and “Double trips are for pussies!” and then offered sips of canned wine to roadies that had the balls to flip them off.

“That’s so gross,” Bonnibel grimaced when the third roadie in a row drank from the proffered can.

“Eh,” Marceline shrugged, “the alcohol kills the germs.”

“That is _very_ untrue,” Bonnibel replied indignantly. “I can absolutely say that there is more sugar in this wine than wine. The only thing dying in this can is my likelihood of waking up without a hangover.”

“Meh, I don’t believe in germs,” Marceline said with a deadpan face.

Bonnibel spluttered and coughed, spewing wine all down her front. “I – _what_ – you can’t – you _what_?” she stammered, trying to wipe wine off her face with the collar of her soaked shirt. She didn’t seem to notice how her hem rose up, revealing three inches of bare midriff. “Germs aren’t an _opinion_ ,” she argued, her voice muffled by the fabric.

“Sure, they are,” Marceline replied. “I can’t see them, so I don’t believe in them.”

Bonnibel popped her head back through her shirt, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. As she did, Marceline marveled at how easily she expressed every indignant thought in her brain just by moving her eyebrows. “I mean,” she continued, “If we can’t see them, what proof do we have that they’re really there?”

“ _Every_ proof! We _can_ see them! Through a micro _scope_!” Bonnibel argued shrilly.

“Mm… Sounds like that’s easy to fake. Have you heard of photoshop?”

Bonnibel looked at her like someone had actually murdered a puppy right in front of the two of them on the grassy lawn.

“You’re too easy, Bon,” Marceline cackled after a minute of watching her squirm.

“I – you – you’re messing with me?!” Bonnibel exclaimed, which only made Marceline laugh harder.

“Not even trying that hard,” Marceline bragged and raised her can in Bonnibel’s direction, drinking to her indignant glare. After a moment, Bonnibel broke, a laugh escaping her lips as she sat back in the chair. Marceline followed suit, enjoying this new, strange friendship as she drank the last of her wine. When she realized it was finished, she stared into the empty container, wishing there were more. Wishing time could freeze or slow down or just… go on a little longer. Because the crew was almost finished packing up. Because Marceline was exhausted and had to be in a new city the next day. Because Bonnibel needed to get in her car and head off to a fantastical life, one full of excitement and academia. Of which she, Marceline, would never understand, or be a part.

“Well, I better get going,” Bonnibel said dejectedly after several minutes. “I have to be up early tomorrow, and if I stay here any longer, I won’t be able to drive.” Sighing, she threw both hands onto the armrests of her chair and heaved herself out of it with a groan. With a wan smile, she turned and looked down at Marceline apprehensively. “This was…” she started to say, reaching for something, _anything_ , to express what she meant. “…Magical,” she finished after a moment.

Marceline felt the word penetrate her entire being. She stood up to face Bonnibel and stepped forward just a little, the sweet smell of her perfume wafting across the small space between them. “Yeah,” she said honestly, “it really was.” Bonnibel beamed, and for a full ten seconds, they just looked at each other. Marceline drank in Bonnibel’s expressive eyebrows, her piercing gaze, the way she pushed her lips to the side when she was suppressing a smile.

And then without warning, Bonnibel spun on her heel and started to walk away. Marceline watched her go, feeling a weight begin to press in on her chest. Impulsively, she shouted, “Bonnibel, wait!” Bonnibel stopped, and then slowly turned on her heel until she could see Marceline looking at her expectantly. “How will I… I mean, I need your number. To text you. For that drink.”

A crooked grin spread slowly across Bonnibel’s face as she considered the request. After a moment, she walked back up to Marceline, only stopping when she was just a shade too close for comfort. Marceline eyed her suspiciously as Bonnibel then leaned forward and reached around Marceline’s waist, her hand resting gently on her back pocket.

“Whaaaa-,” Marceline started to say, or perhaps ask. But before she could figure out exactly how she was going to finish the thought, Bonnibel stepped back, holding the autograph marker Marceline had been using earlier between two delicate fingers, a mischievous look in her eyes. Swiftly, she leaned forward again, but this time she grabbed Marceline’s wrist. Holding it in her palm, she slapped the marker into Marceline’s hand, and then held out her own palm and waited. Stupefied, Marceline glanced down at Bonnibel’s extended hand and uncapped the marker. “Guess there’s no denying your claim on me now,” she said boldly as Marceline wrote. Marceline felt herself blush but ducked her head so that her hair would fall into place to cover any shades of red creeping up her neck. Finishing, she capped the pen with a slap and winked at Bonnibel.

“Later, Princess,” Marceline said, suddenly cool, and turned to go help the crew load up the bus. Without looking, she felt Bonnibel’s eyes on her as she walked away.


	6. The Vulnerability of Peace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once upon a time, NASA decided to send a woman into space. But because she was like the only woman the NASA scientists had ever met, and they were in charge of supplies, they didn't know what she needed. She was supposed to go up for a six day trip. And so the NASA scientists, the smartest men alive, decided that instead of asking the woman what she needed for six days, put together a package of 100 tampons. And gave them to her. And when she gazed upon the vision of 100 tampons tied together in disbelief, they asked, "Is that enough?"

The fundraiser was a black-tie movie premiere. The movie in question was just a short, ten-minute documentary on the work some charity was doing across the city and the country. Clips of smiling working-class Americans discussing what it meant to be a part of their community and how volunteering changed them were superimposed over a maudlin soundtrack mainly consisting of Sara McLachlan’s _Angel_. It was all a bit too saccharine, even for Bonnie’s taste, but it had played well with the focus groups. When her PR director had come to her with the idea of the premiere, Bonnie had wanted to turn the whole thing down, but she knew it would delight the rich assholes she was trying to attract to visit the city. Red-Carpet glamour, an open bar serving watered-down cocktails, and the chance for the privileged to simultaneously show off and intimidate their competitors presented an opportunity that was far too vapidly tempting for even the most sophisticated and learned of the Kingdom City aristocracy to pass up.

Bonnie arrived at the venue three hours early to meet with the planner and make sure everything was running smoothly, then swung home, changed, and arrived back at the fundraiser just in time to be fashionably late. Photographers swarmed the limo as they pulled up, some from news outlets and some they had hired to add to the ambiance, who began to shout and snap pictures before she even opened the door. For just a second, Bonnie felt a sense of déjà vu. Yes, she had done events like this before as mayor, but the added Hollywood glitz sent her spinning back years to a time when she was young and raw and… To a time when a movie premiere, even a small documentary premiere for a charitable cause in a mid-sized city, would have left her awed and drunk on the magic. She paused, hand on the door handle, and looked down. She was wearing a pale pink lace gown, which was carefully designed to leave skin tastefully revealed through translucent mesh down her back and cleavage. Lace swirled over her body like mist and carefully hugged her waist before gently expanding into a wide, floor-length skirt. The gown was made for a queen or a rock star, but here she was, a mayor instead.

Part of Bonnie felt like a fraud. Part of her felt like a princess. But mostly, she just felt too tired and worried for her city to care. _Maybe that’s what true glamour is_ , she thought, remembering the way Marceline could dress in the highest couture or the rattiest sweats, and still saunter down any street, runway, or talk show stage like the Queen of fucking England. _Real glamour is simply being too tired to care what other people put you in and letting others believe it’s because you’ve grown confident_. It made sense. Bonnie had been too busy to be anxious, and she had just let her personal assistant figure out her wardrobe for the evening. _Maybe I’ll just do that every time_ , she thought wryly, and pulled on the door handle.

Lights flashed in Bonnie’s eyes and voices called out to her, “Madame Mayor! Madame Mayor! Look over here! Who are you wearing, Madame Mayor?” Bonnie laughed, not to please them, but because she knew it was all pomp and circumstance, bread and circuses. The real paparazzi were far more frightening, simply because they were willing to go much farther to get the truly devastating shot. Still, she watched as the cameras closed in while she laughed, as they complimented her dress and the shot. She posed exactly once, placing her hand on her hip, throwing her head back, and offering up a wide smile. She knew that if she didn’t, her publicist would give her another talk about needing to be a “team player.” But past one smile, she was done, and giving the fake paparazzi a wink, she sauntered inside using a walk she had learned from Marceline. The photographers behind her snapped their cameras at warp speed as she left.

A waiter met Bonnie just as she entered the double glass doors with a proffered glass of champagne. Exhausted and burdened with taking a night off for what she could only describe as an exercise in frivolity, Bonnie took the flute gratefully and gulped the entirety of its contents in a single toss. The waiter, a tall, wiry man with a clean-shaven face and brown eyes, watched in shock when she slammed the glass back onto his tray. “Would you like another?” he asked warily. Bonnie nodded, grabbed another glass off the tray, and walked away.

They had rented out the ballrooms in a Four Seasons Hotel. Near the dance floor, a live quartet kept up a steady set of waltzes, foxtrots, and tangos. Several couples, entwined in each other’s arms, swayed back and forth. One couple, who had apparently seen at least a few episodes of _Dancing with the Stars_ , attempted a box step. Bonnie tried not to make a face at how far culture had fallen. But even so, glamour lights and chandeliers sparkled all around and left her feeling, for just a moment, as if she had actually walked into a ballroom in Hollywood.

“Mayor Brooks,” a gruff voice said behind her. Bonnie whipped around and came face-to-face with Captain Garr, who looked as if someone had shaken him out and stuffed him into a musty suit that was only about twenty years out of style. But in spite of his unkempt wardrobe, the suit fit, and he looked significantly better than usual. His usually greasy and outgrown hair was washed, neatly cut, and combed into submission, and his beard had been trimmed down to whisker-length.

“Captain Garr,” Bonnie answered, letting the pleasant surprise ring through her voice. “You clean up nicely.”

“Can’t let you bougie folks have all the fun,” he answered.

“Or all the liquor,” Bonnie finished for him.

Garr grinned and raised a glass of what looked like whiskey toward her in salute.

“I heard you promoted Jake Dogon to detective,” Bonnie said after taking a sip from her own glass.

Garr grunted and sipped his whiskey. “Kid deserved it. And when I put him up fer it, no one kicked up much of a fuss once I fixed the budget,” he said a little begrudgingly.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Bonnie said. “He’ll make a good detective, I think.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re right. Ain’t no reason to get all in a twist over it.”

Bonnie let out a single laugh and patted Garr on the shoulder, which seemed to mollify him. “So,” she said and turned to gaze out at the room, “Who do you think will be going home with someone other than their spouse tonight?”

Garr snorted into his glass and took another sip. “It’s not about who _ain’t_ goin’ home with the missus; it’s about who _is_. And the answer is no one.” He shrugged and added, “Maybe Dogon and his lady, but I think they’re about as rare as a fart from a unicorn.”

That time Bonnie really did laugh. “Okay, what’s a more equal bet, then?” she asked and eyed him conspiratorially.

Garr paused and thought for a minute. “How many of these narcissistic assholes you think won’t be launderin’ their image at this here shindig?”

“Oooh,” Bonnie mused and eyed the door as more and more state’s congressmen, city council members, business owners, and local celebrities began spilling into the room. She knew that many of them had to have their hands in something illegal, whether it was the increasing drug presence or the rise of gang violence over the past five years. When a couple of the cops from Garr’s precinct made their way up the red carpet and into view, Bonnie really had to raise an eyebrow. “Thirty percent?” she guessed, turning to Garr.

He grinned and raised his glass to her again. And in that second, time slowed. Even as Garr stood, his whiskey halfway to his lips, Bonnie heard voices calling the only name that could paralyze her in her tracks.

“Marceline! _Marceline!_ Over here! Over here, Marceline!”

“Marceline! Who are you wearing?!”

“Who are you here with, Marceline?!”

“What happened to your European tour, Marceline?!”

The voices of the paparazzi and reporters rose over the din of the music, heightened in their excitement as they stood in the presence of a genuine star, as opposed to all the B-list celebrities and local politicians that had already arrived.

Bonnie’s heart began to hammer violently in her chest, desperately trying to break free of its cage of bone, skin, and swirling pink lace. Nausea rose in her throat, working in concert with the pounding in her ears. With locked jaws, she muttered, “Excuse me,” and turned away from the Captain, desperate to be anywhere but where she was. The Captain, not one to adhere to social graces himself, grunted and wandered off in the direction of the bar, undoubtedly for a refill. Fazed, Bonnie made her way out of the ballroom through a side door and up a hallway until she found a family bathroom. She slipped inside, grateful for the privacy, locked the door, and leaned heavily against it. Her legs shook with the weight of her thoughts as the ghost of her words echoed in her brain.

 _Deep breath in_ , Bonnie thought and forced herself to comply. She counted to four, released it, counted to four, and inhaled again. Slowly, the sound of her own voice shrieking, _“I don’t have time for mobster trash like you!”_ began to fade again into the back of her memories. With a sigh of relief, Bonnie relaxed. Until, that is, she felt a telltale prickle in her eyes. _No tears!_ she shouted at herself in horror, even as her vision blurred and her throat began to tighten. By sheer force of will, she tilted her head back, continued to breathe deeply, and thought of the grant she was currently reading for one of her research scientists. Meticulously, she made herself to try and recall every detail, starting with the hypotheses, the proposed measures, and the rationale. _No tears_ , she told herself again after several minutes had passed, but this time more gently. When she could breathe evenly and her vision cleared, she lowered her head.

Shakily, Bonnie pushed herself away from the door and stumbled over to the sink. She really wanted to splash her face with water, but she couldn’t for the same reason she refused to cry. It had taken a make-up artist the better part of an hour to apply what felt like camera-level face paint on her earlier, but she looked _damn_ good. Late nights reviewing case files and anxiety-fueled nightmares had left dark circles under her eyes and fine lines on her face that she had never seen before. But the makeup artist was a genius, in Bonnie’s opinion. She had expertly shaded and colored the contours of her face until she looked fifteen years younger. And as much as Bonnie wanted to let herself fall apart, she knew that to do so would make her distress apparent through track lines all over the artist’s hard work. And she would absolutely _not_ be the butt of everyone’s gossip.

“Okay,” she whispered while she let the cold water wash over her wrists. “Okay.” A deep breath, a sip of the water through cupped hands, and she was ready to go. Steadying herself, she gave herself a once-over in the mirror, and then marched out of the bathroom in grim determination.

+++++++++

Walking through the wall of fake paparazzi and real reporters was like running in a pool. Marceline made her way sluggishly down the red carpet, Finn’s hand tucked securely on her arm, and did her best to smile. Years of practice had given her a natural glamor walk, which she slipped into with ease, leaning back slightly and slowly waving to the crowd. She was sporting a draped red silk dress with an asymmetrical hemline that ran from her right hip to her left ankle and rippled in liquid swirls every time she moved. With its twisted straps, plunging neckline, and the way it showed off her finely toned leg, it was hard not to feel sexy. “Smile,” she whispered sideways to Finn, who looked like he might throw up. He forced a pained grin onto his face and waved warily at a few of the cameras.

“Who’s your date?!” one of the paps called.

Marceline grinned mischievously. “Officer Finn Mertens, one of Kingdom’s Finest,” she said in her silkiest voice. Playing to the flashbulbs, she pulled Finn into her side, slowly cupped one of his cheeks with her hand, and pressed her forehead into the other side of his face. Finn blushed deeply, but at least had the mind to lean into it and smile more genuinely for the cameras.

“Finn! Finn! How does it feel to risk your life every day to protect the citizens of Kingdom?!” One of the reporters asked.

Finn waved a hand and answered in a deep voice that Marceline recognized from when she caught him practicing in the bathroom mirror, “I’m nothing special. I’m just doing the job I love. I’m sure all of my fellow officers feel the same.”

Marceline eyed him appreciatively and then tucked her head onto his shoulder, placing her hand gently on his chest. “So modest,” she said to the reporter. “And so brave. Any girl would be lucky to have him, which is why I said yes when he invited me tonight.”

“He invited _you_?” Another reporter asked.

Marceline grinned, stood up straight again, and looked proudly at the group of reporters. “That’s right,” she said clearly into one microphone that had been shoved into her personal space. “Finn Mertens is such a rising star in the KCPD that he received an invitation by the Mayor herself. And I was so honored when he asked me, I _absolutely_ couldn’t refuse.”

After another five minutes of repetitive and asinine questions, Marceline pulled Finn through the crowd into the lobby of the hotel. Grinning at the waiter, she took an offered glass of champagne and sipped it gingerly while throwing glances at all the various ladies milling about. She was satisfied to see that many of them were looking at Finn in unsubtle glances and whispering giddily to each other. “You,” he whispered with a bit of awe in his voice, “Are the best… Wingman… _Ever_.”

Marceline laughed dramatically, arching her head back and wrapping an arm around her stomach while steadying herself with his shoulder. “Oh Finn,” she exclaimed breathlessly, “you are so funny!” Around them, more people watched to see what caused the goddess-like rock star in the draped red gown to laugh so beautifully.

Finn laughed with her and threw furtive glances around at the crowd. Marceline patted his cheek to bring his attention back on her while she caught her breath. As he stared at her in confusion, she leaned in to whisper in his ear, one hand on his chest while the other grazed his arm. “You’ve got this,” she said seductively. Finn blushed, which only helped to sell the drama. “I’m only getting their attention, but you really are a _prize_ , Finn Mertens. Keep being that charming, confident person I know and love. Okay?” She leaned back and flashed him a heartfelt smile, which he returned with just as much genuine gratitude. Then she turned, slapped him on the ass, and walked gracefully away. Stunned, Finn stood there for a few seconds, and then shook himself out of his shock, and followed.

Marceline tried to keep her attention on Finn as she wandered through the ballroom and scanned the crowd for a girl who would do. After all, she had come here for her buddy, not _herself_. He claimed he was trying to make the Mayor jealous, but Marceline already knew it was a futile attempt. As a way to get his mind off Bonnie’s rejection, though, she was planning to use what she had to find him someone else. Someone _better_. Someone _worthy_. The only problem was…

_Bonnibel._

She couldn’t help it. As she walked, flirting with Finn while covertly checking out every girl in the place, Marceline kept searching for strawberry blonde hair and pale skin stretched over a small frame. Delicate features and a smattering of freckles. Dark green eyes that never relaxed. An intense gaze that could cut through your soul and see your thoughts. Flashes of memory kept appearing in her mind’s eye, there for an instant, and then suddenly replaced. Sitting on the hood of Bonnibel’s car in the middle of the desert, drinking shitty boxed wine and watching the stars. An instant where Marceline saw the way Bonnibel looked at the constellations shining above them, and she had wished she would see that gaze when Bonnibel turned to face _her_. One second there, and it was replaced with Bonnibel studying at the kitchen table while Marceline plucked at her bass strings and subtly tried to grab her attention. Piles of books overlapping each other, notes scattered everywhere, and Marceline had to bump into them and send them flying. The sound of Bonnibel’s voice when she said Marceline’s name when she was frustrated, when she was happy, when she wanted attention. When Marceline kissed her. The sound of Marceline’s own voice rattling through her skull. The look on Bonnibel’s face when she sang those vile lyrics.

“Oh, I think I see Jake!” Finn exclaimed after a minute, brightening. To Marceline’s amusement, he threw his hand in the air and began waving, crying, “Jake! Jake!”

On the other side of the room, a familiar face with a scruffy goatee turned to see what the noise was. On his arm was a short, thin Asian woman with dark hair and a pretty face in a tight black dress. The man brightened when he saw Finn waving from across the room, and three seconds later, he had barreled his way over in a football-players crouch, crying, “Buuuuuuddyyyyyyyy!” Realizing what was about to happen, Marceline stepped lightly away, just in time. Jake ran straight into Finn, grappled him around the waist, hoisted him from the ground, and started hopping up and down with him on his shoulders. Finn, who saw Jake coming, spent the entire encounter laughing and shouting to be let down. And when that didn’t work, he began to swing his fists in an effort to break free. Marceline watched, amused, as everyone turned to look at the source of the cries echoing around the room.

“ _Finn!_ What are you _doing?!_ ” a sweet voice barked in an oddly harsh tone. Finn and Jake froze in their spots, Finn still perched at an odd angle on Jake’s shoulder, his legs akimbo and his jacket askew. Marceline noticed that his hair stuck up wildly from his face, which matched the confused and abashed look he wore. She might have laughed, except that the second she heard the voice, her breath froze in her lungs.

Paralyzed, Marceline watched the familiar figure approach them. She was enveloped in a shroud of swirling, pale pink lace. Tendrils of fabric clung to her in just the right spots to make the dress modest, but left large spaces of bare skin open down the front of her torso. Marceline tried not to let her gaze wander. Tried _desperately_ not to notice how toned her shoulders were, the way the dress showed off her clavicle, her shoulders, and the curve of each breast, barely peeking out from behind the lace that contained it.

“Marceline,” Bonnibel’s voice chimed in a resigned tone.

 _So. She knew I was here_ , Marceline thought. “Hey, Bonnibel,” she said with a breeziness she didn’t feel.

“Did you come here with Finn?” Bonnibel asked and glanced briefly to her side where Finn and Jake were still perched, stunned and frozen.

Marceline forced her lips into a nauseating grin. She hoped it didn’t look like a grimace, but she couldn’t be sure. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Finn slide to the ground, his face aflame with embarrassment. “Yeah,” she said with sarcastic glee and lazily crossed her arms. “He’s a fun date.” She paused and cocked an eyebrow. “You know,” she added slowly, letting her gaze wander down the length of the pink gown and back up, “we went out last night for a hunt. Found some wolves; chased ‘em down.” She stepped forward, just once. “Then we celebrated our victory. With a hunt.” When she smiled again, it was no longer forced. Bonnibel pushed her lips to the side and rolled her eyes. “And then, you know,” Marceline continued, “We came here for some rest. Had to make it an easy hunt to relax. For tomorrow, we will wear ourselves out.” She leaned forward and added in a whisper, “ _With a hunt._ ”

Bonnibel let out an abrupt laugh and then tried to cover it with a cough, which was more satisfying than if it had been intentional. Clearing her throat, she looked off to the side with a smile and tucked her tongue under a tooth in an expression that Marceline recognized as being amused in spite of herself. It was a smile that was so achingly familiar, she almost stepped forward again.

Almost.

“Heeeey, wait,” Jake said slowly, realization dawning on his face, “do you guys know each other?” He pointed lazily between the two of them. Marceline glanced at Bonnibel and grinned mischievously, then looked back at Finn, who was wearing a confused and slightly betrayed expression.

“A long time ago,” Marceline clarified. “We used to be friends.”

Bonnibel let out a small snort, appreciating the old joke. “Yeah, well,” she said, “I haven’t talked to her lately at all.”

Marceline looked back at her and cocked an eyebrow, and then turned back to Finn. Reaching out, she grabbed his elbow and gracelessly pulled him to her side. Startled, Finn stumbled and knocked into her, then righted himself and tried awkwardly to smooth down his hair. Not missing a beat, Marceline rubbed his shoulder with the hand that wasn’t linked through his arm and looked saucily at Bonnibel. “He’s just all muscle and energy, you know?” she said in a husky voice, “I can barely keep up. I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t climb this mountain while I had the chance.” And with that, she leaned up and planted a slow, delicate kiss on his cheek. When she pulled away, Finn’s face had flushed to nearly the same color of lipstick that was imprinted perfectly on his cheek.

He was not the only one. When Marceline turned her gaze back on Bonnibel, she watched as her face registered confusion, then disappointment, and finally, resignation. “Finn, Jake, do you mind if I talk to Marceline for a minute?” Bonnibel asked.

“Uh, sure,” Jake said and pulled Finn away toward the bar, who looked half relieved to escape the whole scene. Marceline turned and watched them go for a moment, waiting until they were out of earshot.

“So, Bon,” Marceline started with a wicked smile once she was sure the boys were far enough away. “Mayor, huh?”

“What are you doing, Marceline?” Bonnibel asked impatiently.

Marceline smiled wider and stepped a little closer to Bonnibel. She didn’t want the gossips to overhear what she had to say next. Although, judging by the low buzz of whispers surrounding them, she knew she had given everyone in town plenty to talk about. “Listen,” she said quietly and leaned toward Bonnibel, who mirrored the action with an annoyed expression, “I mean, he really _wanted_ to be the faithful deputy to your mayor. And since you turned him down – low blow by the way – he asked me to help make you jealous.”

Bonnibel rolled her eyes and scoffed. “ _Really_ , Marceline?” she asked. “And you thought _that_ was a good idea?”

Marceline shrugged. “Hey, what kind of friend am I if I can’t help my buddy bone the Mrs. Robinson to his Benjamin Braddock? Coo-coo, cachoo, Bonnibel.”

“Distasteful,” Bonnibel spat and recoiled.

Marceline shrugged, spun around, and looked out at the crowd, tilting her head towards Bonnibel. “Lighten _up_ , Bon,” she said with a sigh. “Something tells me you could use a chance to let a young, willing officer of the law work out his fantasies on you.” Together, they watched Jake sneak a drink to Finn under the guise of handing him a coke. Finn took a sip and began to cough through the booze. “I mean,” Marceline said lightly, “just look at the _way_ he wears those _pants_. Seriously, Bon, _I_ even considered climbing that Finn mountain just to see what hidden talents he’s hiding behind that innocent face.”

“Ugh, Marceline,” Bonnibel said, turning to give her a delightfully familiar look of disgust. “He’s just a kid.”

Marceline pursed her lips and nodded wistfully. “Yeah,” she sighed. “I mean, it would be fun to deflower him and all that. But let’s be honest, I’m like seventy percent sure I would break the poor boy.”

“Ninety,” Bonnibel retorted.

“Hm,” Marceline replied with a laugh. “Well, if I won’t break him, and you won’t tame him, then how do we get the little guy laid?”

“It’s not our job to get Finn laid,” Bonnibel said tiredly, pinching the bridge of her nose with two fingers and briefly shutting her eyes. “Which is a sentence I never thought I would have to say.”

“Oh, come on, Bon. It’s the least we can do. He’s all filled with repressed sexual tension. At least we can point him in the right direction.”

Bonnibel continued to shake her head slowly while Marceline leaned in a little closer. “Fine,” she said after a moment. “What are you thinking?”

Marceline made a noise in her throat as she thought, her finger to her lips. “Well,” she said and pointed up when she had an idea. “Do you remember, um, what’s her name? Blonde girl with blue highlights that was obsessed with the bartender from that club?”

“Yeah, um, Rae, I think. She was always twirling her hair with her finger. Drove you crazy.”

“No, the fact that she chewed gum like a child with a stuffy nose drove me crazy. She kept popping it right in my ear.”

Bonnibel laughed. “Riiiight,” she said slowly. “You thinking the same thing?”

“I mean, we’d have to tweak a couple details.”

“Well, yeah, but who’re you thinking?” Together, they both looked out into the crowd and began to scan for likely candidates – there were a few politicians’ kids and college interns in attendance, and they just needed to find the right one.

“Green dress?” Bonnibel asked.

“Too young,” Marceline said with a scrunched face. “She looks twelve, even if she’s not. Blonde slutty dress?”

“Too mean,” Bonnibel said. Marceline inclined her head and moved on.

“Middle part?”

“Too old.”

“Maybe she’s into that,” Marceline retorted and grinned at Bonnibel, who ignored her.

“Freckles in the red dress?”

“She’s a ginger,” Marceline said in mock disgust.

“Yeah, so? Never stopped you,” Bonnibel said pointedly.

“Yeah, but I’m a vampire. We’re attracted to the soulless,” Marceline retorted with a flirty grin and ran her eyes over Bonnibel’s dress again.

Bonnibel cleared her throat in what Marceline suspected was a cover-up for a laugh. “She’s perfect, though. Seventeen, about to head off to college, completely adorable. What’s not to like?”

Marceline bit her lip and stared at the girl in question. “You know who she is?”

“Yeah, her dad is the Chief of Surgery over at Kingdom View Mercy. She’s come to a few of these.”

“Ever had a boyfriend?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“Okay,” Marceline declared, clapping her hands together and then pointing them both at Bonnibel. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“We only have an hour,” Bonnibel pointed out.

“Hm, okay. That does put a damper on things. Rush job?”

“It’ll never work. I spy?”

“Eh,” Marceline responded with a skeptical twist of her lip. “They might not take the bait. Fifteen shades?”

 _“Marceline!”_ Bonnibel snapped, “No!”

Marceline shrugged with a nonchalant grimace. “It would probably work, but fine.”

“I think we only have one option, really,” Bonnibel said.

“Ugh, nooooo,” Marceline whined and tossed her head back in defiance.

“Come on, you know it’s our best bet.”

“Fiiiine,” Marceline groaned, snapping her head forward, and sighed. “But if it goes sideways, you’re buying me the next round.”

“Deal,” Bonnibel said with a grin and turned to look at Marceline.

Marceline paused as her heart shot up into her throat. The look Bonnibel had given her was one she recognized, one she _craved_. In that moment, she couldn’t believe how easily the years had melted away into nothing and left her standing there with the one person she had prayed she would see again. The one person she had avoided at all costs. The one person who made her feel eighteen and dramatic, like every touch was life or death. And with the sensation of falling backward into something unknown, Marceline smiled back. 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice echoed from the speakers in the room, “In just a moment, we will begin the viewing of our feature presentation of _One Community, Together_. Please make your way into the viewing room, so that we may begin.”

Bonnibel frowned and twisted her lips to the side in frustration. “Perfect timing,” she muttered irritably, but Marceline just snorted.

“Ah, well, we’ll just have to improvise,” Marceline suggested, and gently reached over to take Bonnibel’s arm. But the moment her fingers touched skin, Bonnibel flinched and recoiled, disgust flashing across her face before she managed to pull it into an apologetic grimace.

“I – uh – I’m sorry,” Bonnibel stammered and stepped back, putting a few feet between them.

Marceline nodded stiffly, frozen in place. “No, um, it’s my fault,” she said woodenly. “I should have known.”

“It’s not – it’s, I mean – I didn’t mean -,” Bonnibel tried to explain, but Marceline put up a palm to stop her.

“Don’t worry about it. Like I said, it’s my fault. I forgot for a second that you -,” but she stopped talking mid-sentence and looked away, watching the crowd file through the doors into another converted ballroom for the viewing.

“That I, _what?_ ” Bonnibel asked, her tone slightly accusing. She crossed her arms and leaned on her right leg.

Marceline snapped her head back, trying not to wither under Bonnibel’s intense gaze. “Nothing,” she said. “Forget it. Let’s just -,”

“No. Tell me what you were going to say,” Bonnibel demanded.

Marceline rolled her eyes. “It’s not important,” she all but snapped.

“I think it _is_. Tell me. You forgot, _what?_ That I’m controlling? Mad at you? _What?_ ”

Heat boiled in Marceline’s chest at the words, rising thick and metallic from her throat to her tongue. Later, she would wonder at what possessed her. She would consider the possibility of demons and ghosts, anything to claim that she was not in control of her own body when the words came spilling out, spiteful and bitter. “I already know what you _are_ ,” she spat. “Your revulsion is written plain as day on your face. I forgot that you can be so _vindictive_ , Bonnibel.”

Ringing silence met her words. And Bonnibel’s stoic face. She took three breaths before she replied, so quietly that Marceline almost didn’t hear, “It’s good to know that I only wasted a few minutes on you, Marceline. Rather than my entire night.”

“Yeah,” Marceline said in a dangerously calm voice, narrowing her eyes and stepping closer to Bonnibel. She wanted her to step back, to show her disgust, to give away her true feelings again, but Bonnibel had gone cold, steeling herself up against Marceline’s hot anger. “Well, your constituents will be happy to know you don’t fraternize with mobster trash.”

For a moment, something flashed in Bonnibel’s eyes. Her lips parted, just a touch, and then the look was gone. “Every dictator knows how to handle their constituents,” Bonnibel replied, just as casually. She held Marceline’s glare with her own cool indifference.

“Well,” Marceline said between gritted teeth. “I guess that’s that, then.”

Bonnibel nodded, once, and then walked away, her hands gripping her upper arms in the only sign that she was bothered by Marceline’s words. Marceline followed her with her eyes, blood still pounding in her ears. It was only as the ushers shut the doors to the viewing room in a ringing chorus of crashing metal that Marceline stirred, shook her head to clear it of Bonnibel’s voice, and made her way for the bar. She planned to get very drunk on the mayor’s dime.


	7. Vices and Virtues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: Historically speaking, there is evidence that superpowers have actually shown up in a few select individuals. The most well-documented (and in my opinion, awesome) cases are two women. Joan of Arc and Harriett Tubman lived centuries apart, but they both used their superpowers to save lives, and both were a major factor in turning a war to their side. Both claimed they spoke to God, or God's messengers, and both would have been diagnosed with a schizoaffective disorder if they lived today. HOWEVER, in spite of the fact that they both supposedly suffered from auditory hallucinations, they also knew things that they had absolutely NO WAY of knowing, and they both used it to help out their side. Joan led an army to many victories using intel she was told by angels, turning the tide of the 100 Years War and saving countless Frenchmen and women. And Harriet Tubman used her powers to lead people to freedom and spy for the Northern Army during the American Civil War. Superheroes really do exist.

“Toxicology came back,” Jake said as he strolled into Bonnie’s office, two cups of coffee in hand. He handed one silently over to Bonnie, who took it gratefully and sipped while gesturing for Jake to sit. He obliged with a comfortable sigh.

“It’s about time,” Bonnie quipped. “Anything interesting?”

“Maybe,” Jake said, leaning back in his chair and crossing an ankle over his knee. In the weeks since they started working together, he had gotten significantly more comfortable being in her office. Bonnie noticed the way his eyes began to wander toward her wet bar in the corner. If it were later in the evening, or if he were off duty, she would have offered him a drink. Instead, it was nine in the morning, and while Jake appeared to be coming off a shift, she wasn’t ready to break out the breakfast cocktails. “Doc says this one smoked weed like an anxious epileptic at a Bob Marley concert. In Denver.”

Bonnie struggled not to spit out her coffee. Spluttering, she laughed and leaned back in her chair to catch her breath. “Someone who could keep up with Marceline, then?” she asked, grabbing a napkin to wipe off the coffee that had dripped down her chin.

Jake grinned. “I wouldn’t go that far, but she might have enjoyed trying.”

“Was she still smoking while she was held captive?” Bonnie asked.

Jake pressed his lips together and inhaled in thought. “Doc says could be. Could be not. Part of the reason the tox report took so long was because he sent her hair off to be analyzed, and that’s what tipped him off to her history. That and the patchouli soap he could smell on her. And the full ounce of it in her bag.” Bonnie snorted, picturing the moment a whole baggie of green nuggets was unearthed, making the tox report completely redundant. “But he said the ones who smoke pot like chimneys keep it in their systems a lot longer than the ‘one and done’ kids,” Jake continued.

“It seems strange that the killer would have dumped her with all of her stuff,” Bonnie noted. “Did the medical examiner have any idea how long she was held?”

Jake frowned curiously. “That’s what else I came to tell you. Doc said she wasn’t held that long, as far as he can tell. She had less bruising on her wrists and ankles from where he tied her up. Plus, her injuries weren’t as old as the other two. As far as he could tell, she was only held for a few days.”

“But she went missing a month before she was found,” Bonnie said.

“Like I said, weird.”

Bonnie leaned back in her chair and sipped her coffee, enjoying its effect on her mood. She noticed that Jake had brought it exactly how she liked it: khaki colored with just enough sugar to make it slightly sweet. For a moment, she allowed herself to appreciate that there was more to him than met the eye. While he looked a bit dopey, with a round face, dirty blonde hair, and a slightly lazy disposition, he picked things up far more quickly than Bonnie would have thought. Her coffee was a sign of that. She had only ever told him how she liked it once, and he never forgot.

“Do you think she went willingly?” Bonnie asked. The room filled with the question, and then fell silent with their thoughts.

“Hm… You think she went off with someone she knew for what? A vacation?” Jake asked.

“Maybe she was having an affair?”

“And didn’t realize lover-boy’s intentions until later?”

“Maybe she thought they were getting away for a couple weeks until things turned sour.” Bonnie paused and thought some more. “Or… Did anything come up in her phone records that couldn’t be explained by her friends and family?”

Jake shook his head dejectedly. “I had Finn comb through all of them. He can be really meticulous when something big’s on the line. He found nothing. Nothing on her Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, either.” When Bonnie opened her mouth, he added, “Nothing in her email or snail mail.” Bonnie shut her mouth and raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Official working theory is she had a stalker,” he added to her pleased surprise. “Makes it easier to look for someone who was probably, you know, _actually_ stalking her.”

Bonnie gave Jake a small grin and tipped her head in his direction. “Nicely done. What did the rest of the tox report say?”

Jake shrugged, his eyes fixed on a piece of wall somewhere up and to the left of Bonnie’s head. “Mm, nothing much. She had some alcohol in her blood when she died, but no other drugs.”

“That _is_ weird,” Bonnie said. “What about DNA? Did anything come up yet?”

Jake focused back on Bonnie as he shook his head. “DNA’s a completely different monster. It takes weeks even when it’s our highest priority case and the lab’s not busy. I don’t think we’ll get that back for at least another month, and that’s only if we pray really hard and sacrifice a goat to the gods of forensic science.”

Bonnie grimaced. “Well, don’t go visiting any goat farmers just yet. It’s a miracle they found any at the scene in the first place. I’ll be glad if it says anything.” She took another sip of coffee and let her gaze focus a few miles away, where a woman had been dumped under a bush like inconvenient trash.

“Mm…,” Jake mused. “Technically speaking, every crime scene with a body has DNA. It’s just a matter of who it belongs to.”

Bonnie raised her cup in his direction in a salute. “Well, here’s to hoping that it belongs to someone other than the victim. We could really use a break.”

“Cheers,” Jake said, raising his own cup and sipping it thoughtfully. They sat in companionable silence for a few moments, each reviewing the details in their mind. “Something I don’t get,” Jake said after some time, “is why he chose her.”

“April?” Bonnie asked, coming out of her own thought spiral.

“Yeah. I mean, the city’s a big place. Why choose that _particular_ girl?”

Bonnie looked over his shoulder at a spot on the wall near the window and hummed thoughtfully. “Why did he choose any of them?” she asked.

“Exactly. What was it about them that he wanted to kill?”

Bonnie shook her head. “Different ages, different backgrounds. One was all alone in the world; the others had family looking for her. Three were students-,”

“Eh, might be a stretch to call the first kid a student,” Jake interrupted.

Bonnie shrugged. “She was failing, but technically Cinna was still in high school. But same point. Three were enrolled in school; one was working.” She chewed at her lip and inhaled deeply. “I mean, except for how they were killed, there’s nothing in common with all four.”

“Yeah, it’s weird, isn’t it? You would think he’d be looking for a type, or something,” Jake commented.

“Cinna was white; Olive was half Native American; the other two were Black.”

“Three were raped.”

The statement froze the room.

Bonnie stared, images of terrified women clawing at their attacker floating in her vision and paralyzing her breath. “It’s like his MO is to switch things up,” she whispered when she knew she could breathe again.

“Or he’s trying to keep the cops from making a connection and opening an investigation,” Jake begrudgingly admitted.

Bonnie snapped her attention back into the room and met his gaze steadily. “Except it’s too late,” she said. “We already have.”

“Only in this office,” Jake said slowly.

“We can’t trust _any_ one,” Bonnie said. It was not exactly a revelation, but it brought a stark realization. Suddenly, she began to see just what they were up against. The enormity of the task, which had seemed arduous but manageable only a week before, now loomed monstrously over them. They couldn’t trust anyone with the truth. Medical examiners, prosecutors, lab techs. Anyone passing along information, anyone assessing the evidence, anyone making an arrest, or filing paperwork, or taking the charges to court, were all suspect. Their evidence couldn’t be trusted, or the witness statements, or even the toxicology reports. “We can’t trust anything,” Bonnie said in a small voice.

“We can’t trust anyone or anything _official_ ,” Jake countered and punctuated the point with a wave of his index finger at her.

Bonnie paused, the thought taking root. “Jake, you’re a genius,” she breathed half a second later and leaped up out of her chair. “An absolute Einstein! Have a drink; I need to make a call.”

Jake blanched, looking like he wasn’t sure he had heard her right. But, after a second, he made a face that said, _Why not?_ Shrugging, he hoisted himself out of the chair and sauntered to the back of the room where the wet bar waited as he listened to Bonnie ask for someone named Pepper. A few seconds went by, and then another voice came on the line. Smiling to himself, he carefully selected a decanter with a brown liquor, sniffed it, and then poured himself two fingers’ worth into a tumbler.

“… I could really use your help on something. Are you free for a consult?” Bonnie was asking. The voice on the other end answered. Jake picked up a few words like _calendar_ and _next Friday_ , and then Bonnie continued, “Well, sooner would be better, but I’d rather see you in person.” More garbled noise from the other end, and then, “Yeah, here at my office… Great, I’ll see you then.”

A small clatter as Bonnie put the phone down, and Jake turned back to face her. “So, we’re bringing in someone new?” he asked.

Bonnie nodded. “Someone _un_ official,” she said. “Someone who can help. Who knows more about forensic psychology than we do, anyway.”

Jake grinned and raised his glass in her direction. “All right, don’t leave me hangin’. Who is it?” he asked.

Bonnie leaned on her hands, perched over her desk. “I hired her a while ago,” she said, excited. “Back when I was just starting up the company. She’s a private investigator.”

“Ooh,” Jake replied with a smirk. “Jessica Jones? Veronica Mars?” He gasped sarcastically. “Jessica Fletcher?”

“Who’s Jessica Fletcher?” Bonnie asked with a frown.

Jake dropped his hands and rolled his eyes into an annoyed expression that he shot at her. “You disappoint me,” he said dryly. When he lifted his hand again to sip from the glass, he frowned at it for a moment where some of the bourbon had apparently spilled.

Bonnie smirked. “Sorry to ruin your image of me,” she retorted as Jake tried to lick the spilled bourbon from his wrist. “But unfortunately, no, I won’t be bringing in any sassy, emotionally damaged vigilantes to help us with this. I thought, instead, I might try someone who has _actually_ studied psychology. Her name is Pepper Butler. She helped me with a few lawsuits back in the early days of the company. Mostly just investigating false claims about how I stole someone else’s ideas, but this was always her weird side-obsession.”

“Psychos and weird fetishes?”

“Serial killers.”

“Like I said.”

Bonnie raised an eyebrow at him. In a way, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

“So,” Jake said and crossed the room to take a seat in his chair again. “What makes her an expert?”

Bonnie pressed her lips together. “She was actually going to get her Ph.D. in forensic psychology. She even had a lot of her dissertation written. It was all about cults and debunking popular theories on Satanism and murder. But… I don’t know. She, uh, dropped out about three years in, opened an LLC, and started working as a PI instead.”

“Ooh sounds like there’s a story there,” Jake noted and leaned forward in his chair with the expectant look of a Golden Retriever.

“Probably is. But I never asked,” Bonnie said with a shrug.

Jake grunted and leaned back, disappointed, and looked off to the side in thought. Bonnie watched him for a moment, the question she really wanted to ask perched on her lips. For a full minute, she played with the lip of her coffee cup, not really thinking, but trying to figure out how to bring up the subject casually. After a moment, she realized she was fidgeting, and she sat down once more.

“You should know,” Jake said suddenly, “Rain really liked meeting you the other night.” He raised his eyebrows at her, downed the rest of his drink, and placed the glass on her desk with a gentle _thunk!_

Bonnie took a second to refocus, for a moment forgetting who he was talking about. And then, suddenly, the image of a woman with a heart-shaped face, chocolate-brown eyes, and beautiful rainbow hair popped into her memory. Her hair had been something of a wonder because from the front, it looked black. However, when she swept her arm up behind her and lifted it over her head, a spectrum of colors from hot pink to neon yellow, green, and violet became visible in the layers underneath. Rain, who was what Bonnie could only describe as aggressively friendly but extremely charming, had impressed Bonnie when she spun on her heel to show it off and let it fall like a cascading rainbow waterfall down her back.

“Thank you,” Bonnie said, genuinely flattered. “She’s really charming.”

Jake grinned. “That’s what everyone tells me. I’m just waiting for her to notice that I’m not.”

Bonnie gave him a cursory laugh, but then looked him dead in the eye. “Sure, you are,” she said. “She’s way too smart to waste time on someone who doesn’t charm her.”

And for a second, a pink blush rose in Jake’s ears, giving him away. He cleared his throat and looked away, but Bonnie had to smile at his genuine pleasure. It was all the distraction she needed to quietly ask, “So, uh, you guys are hanging out with Marceline?” She hoped the question came off as subtle, but if she had to guess, she might as well have burst into a song and dance about her feelings.

Jake leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and smiled a little too widely at the floor. He let out a small laugh and nodded slowly. “Yeah, she comes over sometimes,” he said lightly.

Bonnie looked at the top of his head and didn’t say anything else. _You’re not going to ask_ , she told herself forcefully. _You. Are not. Going to ask._

“She’s in town for a few months,” Jake added to the quiet room and looked up, a sparkle in his eye.

Bonnie kept her face impassively blank. “Oh,” she said simply and waited some more.

“Well,” Jake remarked, slapping his knees, and stood up. “I better get going,” he grunted and moved toward the door, pulling on his jacket.

Bonnie sighed and nodded. “Yeah,” she said, a little deflated. “Thank you. You know, for the update. And, uh, if either you or Finn could swing by next Friday at two? Pepper’s going to meet us here.”

Jake frowned lightly in thought and nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “I’ll make sure one of us is here. It’ll be good to hear what she has to say.”

And then he paused, one hand resting on the door frame. “She made an impression on Beemo,” he added with a gravity that Bonnie could feel change the room. “Most people, they look at the little twerp and see a… a political statement. Or a couple of brothers who don’t know how to be parents. Or,” he shrugged and glanced at Bonnie wistfully, “they see a little girl playing pretend.”

He waited, both picturing the excitable kid that had torn through Bonnie’s office only a week before, shouting at the top of their lungs how cool everything was and saying they wanted to be mayor for Halloween. Finn and Jake had laughed as they tried to reign Beemo in, while Bonnie had watched, unsure what to do with the tiny force of nature.

Then Jake continued, his voice piercing the silence. “Marceline… she was the first person in a long time to look at Beemo and just see… Beemo. And as Beemo’s big bro, I kinda have to love her for it.” For a second, Bonnie sat there and watched a sadness creep over his expression, unsure what to say. When her silence continued, Jake slapped the doorframe lightly and said, “Well, see ya later.” And left Bonnie alone in her office with her thoughts.

++++++++++

Marceline paced back and forth, shuffling her boots on the painted wood and wondered for the millionth time if she was a complete moron. She had already been there for nearly half an hour. And after sitting on the top step for what felt like eons, she had started pacing, wondering how much longer she should _keep_ waiting before she was officially being creepy and weird. Glancing at her watch, she bit at her fingernail nervously, and then sat down on the stoop once more with a huff. The bottle of wine in her hand was starting to get warm around the neck from gripping it for so long, so she gently placed it on the stair at her feet and shook out her tingling fingers.

With nothing but her thoughts to keep her company, Marceline was pulled, once again, to the night of the movie premiere. Over and over, a vision of how she reached to take Bonnibel’s arm pierced Marceline repeatedly, like some sort of excruciating Hell Loop. Again, and again, Bonnibel flinched and recoiled. In the split second before recovering, she glared at Marceline with unadulterated revulsion. And again, and again, the clip repeated itself, freezing at the look on Bonnibel’s face, before resetting and beginning anew. Marceline rested her elbows on her knees, chin in hand, and tried to block the image of Bonnibel’s expression out of her mind, but to no avail. She wondered if she would always be doomed to walk the earth, haunted by the aftermath of one single moment.

Marceline knew, of course, that she was being stupid. If she were less of a child, perhaps she would walk away. She could always go back to LA, to her band, her life, and let bygones rest in peace. Or, at the very least, she could just do her best not to run into Bonnibel while she stayed in town and took care of Simon. It wouldn’t be that hard. It was a large city, and Mayor Brooks could barely step out her front door without half the city on alert. All she had to do was _not show up_ in places where the mayor was scheduled to be. It was easy. She literally did it everywhere she went without even trying. And then Bonnibel would be free to live her life Marceline-free. Free of someone she loathed so thoroughly, she recoiled at her touch. As time went on, their memory of each other would fade, and with it, their anger. And after a few months, or possibly years, Marceline wouldn’t care anymore that she ripped out the heart of her once best friend. They had done it once already; they could do it again.

But Marceline was _not_ less of a child. An unseen gravity pulled at her wherever Bonnibel went, and as much as she had tried, she could not walk away. It was an addiction. _Bordering on obsession_ , she chastised herself in an attempt to walk away from the painted front porch she was currently occupying. She wasn’t even sure she knew what she wanted to happen. She just knew that… she had to say something. _Do_ something. If she couldn’t make things the way they were, at least she could try and make Bonnibel hate her a little bit less. _You’re an idiot_ , a voice in her head chastised. _You’re not here because you want to make sure she’s okay. You’re here because you don’t want her to be mad at you._ _You should resist this weird pull she has on you and just go home. Your leaving will put her at peace._

But resistance was futile, and Marceline continued to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

+++++++++

When her town car pulled up in front of the house, Bonnibel wasn’t sure she could believe what she saw. It had been weeks since she’d gotten a decent night’s sleep, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if she were actively hallucinating the image of Marceline waiting for her on the front porch of her house. But when she opened the door and stepped out of the car, the figure hunched on the stairs stood up. There was no mistaking Marceline’s messy black hair, shaved along one side of her head, and her tall, willowy frame. She was dressed, as always, in something slightly alarming. In this case, it was a pair of washboard jeggings, biker boots and a leather jacket, all which completed her wraithlike energy as she stalked in the shadows of Bonnibel’s house. In a flash of memory, Bonnibel remembered tracing the lines along her jaw and long neck with a finger. Her skin had felt like silk under her touch.

“Marceline?” Bonnibel asked tiredly and stepped up onto the porch to face her.

“Hey, Bon,” Marceline replied shakily and offered a tentative smile. “I, uh, brought you a… peace offering.” She held out a bottle for Bonnibel to inspect. Bonnibel stepped forward and leaned into the light to read the label. For a second, her lips twitched at the word _Pinot_ , drunken raps ringing in her ears. Marceline looked at her hopefully.

But Bonnibel was exhausted, and she didn’t have time to deal with… whatever it was that Marceline wanted. “Now’s not a good time,” she said with a sigh and watched Marceline deflate.

“That’s okay,” Marceline said in the same shaky tone. “A-another time.”

“Sure,” Bonnibel answered. And she meant to step past Marceline to get to her front door, where her bodyguard, Mike, was waiting to see her safely inside. She had plans to pour herself a quick scotch to savor while she showered, and then drop immediately into bed. It was one of those days where the thought of enjoying a cold drink while being pelted by scalding water was the only thing keeping her on her feet. But, as much as a hot shower and her warm bed were calling to her, her feet would not move. Something pulled at her, kept her tethered, and as much as she wanted to, she could not tear herself away. “How long are you in town for?” she asked, hating herself even as the words escaped her lips.

“Oh,” Marceline said, jerking her head back up to meet Bonnibel’s gaze. For a second, she bit her bottom lip in a way that Bonnibel recognized as debating how much to reveal. “I’m – I’m not sure. I guess I’m here for as long as Simon needs me, which might be a while.”

“Simon?” Bonnibel asked, crossing her arms across her chest. “Is something wrong?”

Marceline dropped her gaze and leaned sideways against the porch beam. The light caught the angles of her nose and brow and threw long shadows across her cheeks, making her eyes look dark and ghoulish. For a second, all Bonnibel could see was a wraith, come to deliver her soul across the River Styx. One moment there, and then it was gone. Marceline was just Marceline, despondently tracing invisible lines on the porch with her toe as she replied, “No, no. Everything’s… more of the same. He just doesn’t really have anyone, you know. And I was away for the last few years, so I just… came to spend some time with him, I guess.”

Bonnibel grimaced and grunted to show her sympathy but said nothing else. She could tell that Marceline wasn’t telling the truth. At least not all of it. _But that’s fine_ , Bonnibel thought bitterly. _It’s not like she owes me the truth. And even if she did… it’s not like she’d tell me anyway._ “That must be nice,” Bonnibel said simply, and eyed the bottle of wine in Marceline’s hand. Marceline saw the direction of her gaze and tapped the bottle against her thigh a few times.

“Yeah,” Marceline said and cleared her throat. “Simon likes having the company.”

They stood there for another second, Marceline unable to leave, Bonnibel unable to walk inside. Both simply stared at each other, wondering at the familiarity of the other’s face. On some level, Bonnibel wished that Marceline didn’t look the same as she had fifteen years earlier. That she didn’t have the same dark brown eyes, the same angular jaw, the same gleaming skin the color of hazelnuts. She wished that Marceline had grown old, and fat, and withered. That she had lost some of the grace in her movements, or some of the poise in her demeanor. But even as rapidly as the thought appeared in her mind, Bonnibel dismissed it.

If Marceline had appeared to her any other way than she had, looking like some sort of beguiling apparition offering a fragile truce, she would have mourned the loss. In some ways, Bonnibel had always thought the label of Vampire Queen was fitting for her. For one, she had the look down, with the hair and the clothes and the weird, stalkery habits of lurking in the shadows. Plus, even at thirty-five, she still possessed the sweeping grace of someone eternally young. But it was more than that. She skated through life like it was one giant crash course, relishing every injury and shaking off anyone she left behind. She could hold anyone with a gaze and destroy them with a look. It was part of her charm, and part of why so many people were attracted, even drawn to her. Marceline used them and left them as easily as breathing, and never with a word of regret. And so, if she did wither, if she did somehow begin to show the passage of time, Bonnibel wouldn’t have known what to do, because it would have meant the end of an era, good or bad.

“Well,” Marceline said, pulling them both out of their pensive trances and pushing herself upright, “I’ll leave you to it.” She started to walk down the steps, then paused, and turned. “Here,” she said, holding out the wine toward Bonnibel. “You look like you could use a drink.”

Bonnibel snorted and looked away toward Mike, her lips twitching again. “Thanks,” she said, and turned back to gently take the bottle from Marceline. She didn’t notice how careful Marceline was not to brush her fingers while she handed it over. “Give Simon my best.”

“Hm,” Marceline replied and pressed her lips together. She stood for another second, staring up at Bonnibel, and then turned on her heel and walked out to the street where her bike was waiting. Bonnibel watched her leave, and then took a deep breath, closing her eyes. For a moment, she enjoyed the brief scent of dirt, grass, and wildflowers blooming nearby. Then, as the sound of Marceline’s bike roared away, she turned and slowly walked inside.


	8. Theodore Robert Bundy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as an FYI: There will be no new chapter next week. I know; I know - try not to freak out. I promise I will be back after I've had a chance to catch up on all the things. If you're bored, read some other people's works and say nice things to them. They love you too. See you in two weeks.

Bonnie sat on the couch in her office with one foot tucked under her and worked silently on her laptop, trying to stem the cascading tide of emails that always threatened to overwhelm her inbox. She had set Pepper up at her desk, who was now silently reading through every file she suspected belonged to the case. It was a tedious job, and Pepper had been at her desk for hours poring through autopsy reports, phone records, witness statements, and forensic reports. Beside her, Finn sat and fidgeted, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but cooped up in that office, but he bore the weight of it rather well. He was needed because every few minutes, Pepper would look up and ask him a question about some detail that was unclear or left out of the files, and he would answer dutifully. And then she would go back to her study and he would go back to fidgeting. For the most part, they spent the day in a comfortable, but weighted, silence. Finally, sometime after most of the staff had gone home for the day and the sun sank low in the sky, Pepper sighed and slowly stood, pausing to stretch her arms above her head like a cat. Then, she delicately removed her glasses from her face and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Bonnie looked up, recognizing the expression on her face, and shut her laptop. “So?” she asked after a minute. Pepper nodded slowly and braced herself on the desk, hands down and arms slightly splayed. To Bonnie’s trained eye, she looked exhausted. In her mid-forties, she had dark brown hair that matched her large, kind eyes exactly, but somehow exuded an energy that even Finn couldn’t match. With her smooth skin, black-rimmed glasses, and pin-straight hair, she was the kind of person who always appeared crisp and professional, no matter the hour or the day. And even as she gazed at Bonnie with the gravity of a twelve-hour workday that was yet to be finished, she still looked ready to go another three rounds and come out on top.

“You’re not crazy,” Pepper said drily. “There’s definitely something here.”

Finn watched her, suddenly still. Bonnie sighed, shut her eyes, and leaned back into the couch. Whether it was relief or desperation, she wasn’t sure, but she suddenly felt _something_ press her into the cushions. “I’m not done,” Pepper continued. With a groan, Bonnie sat back up, placed her elbows on her knees and rested her chin in her hands, waiting. “These cases seem connected, yes, but I can’t say for sure that they were all done by the same person.”

Bonnie frowned. “But the bodies, the killer-,”

“Held them all somewhere cold before strangling them, yes,” Pepper finished for her with a nod. Carefully, she selected several individual sheets from the piles in front of her, grabbed her glasses, and gingerly made her way over to the couch. Sitting down, she handed the sheets over to Bonnie, who took them and began to look them over. With a sigh, she realized they were the ever-familiar autopsy reports of each victim. Across the room, Finn stood and dragged his chair over to empty space across from Bonnie, where he perched on the edge of his seat and waited. Beside her, Pepper placed her glasses back on her face and leaned in to view the reports with Bonnie. “Here,” she said, pointing to a detail on the latest report. “And here,” she indicated another spot on the one before. “His timeline is all over the map.”

“Okay?” Bonnie asked, looking at the details where Pepper had indicated. “He held them for different lengths of time. So what? He could have been interrupted. He could have gotten excited and killed her too quickly.”

“Hm,” Pepper responded and pressed her lips together. “Maybe,” she said in a tone that meant she was humoring Bonnie. Bonnie tried hard not to roll her eyes. “But the way he’s moving, it’s… counterintuitive.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning… Most serial killers follow a pattern, more or less. They start small, with animals or victims of convenience. Like most people, they want to feel safe, so they fantasize about killing a long time in advance, especially with the first human victim. A lot of the time, the first victim is the most crucial, because it’s the most telling. It’s either the person they have always dreamed of killing, or it’s some sort of proxy – someone who reminds them a lot of that person.”

“Like if they always wanted to kill their mom, but the mom dies, so they kill a girl who looks a lot like her?” Finn asked.

“Exactly,” Pepper said, pointing at him like a teacher praising a student. Finn sat up a little straighter, his lips twitching. “Although, it’s not always looks. Could be some other sort of trait. Personality, occupation, or something they can’t necessarily define.”

“Okay,” Bonnie mused, looking back over the autopsy reports. “How does this fit in with our killer?”

“It doesn’t,” Pepper said simply. “But also, it does.”

“Great. Thank you. That clears everything up.” Bonnie replied drily.

Pepper let out a small laugh. “Most serial killers start longer in between kills and then work their way faster. The first kill is the most thrilling for them, and they spend a long time afterward living off the high from the memory of it. But eventually, the memory starts to go cold, and they begin to fantasize about killing again, and then they do. Each time, the cooling down period takes less and less time, until eventually, they spiral out of control.”

Bonnie looked at Pepper grimly. “So, more women are going to die faster.”

“Probably, yes,” Pepper said impassively. Across from her, Finn’s eyebrows twitched as he tried not to show his horror at the thought. “Your killer has only murdered four women so far-,”

“-That we know of,” Bonnie interjected.

Pepper nodded. “That we know of,” she conceded. “And he hasn’t made a mistake yet. Ted Bundy managed to kill at least thirty women before he went on a murder spree and was caught the final time.”

Finn turned his head to look at Pepper, frowning. “The _final_ time?” he asked, a bit stunned. “How many times did they catch him?”

“Three,” Pepper answered with a shrug. “He escaped from jail twice. Once because he decided to represent himself and demanded time to study for his defense in the law library, which they had to allow. He jumped out of the window when the guards weren’t looking.”

Bonnie might have laughed, might have been impressed, because it was so ridiculous. Except that even as the humor occurred to her, she realized that because someone left a window open in a library, a killer had gone on a murder spree. Finn turned his gaze somewhere to Bonnie’s right, staring at something she couldn’t see, his face frozen in thought.

“But even that estimate is low,” Pepper continued, ignoring the parade of emotions rushing through the room. “As far as experts can tell, he could have murdered upwards of over a hundred women. They can only confirm thirty because that’s what he confessed to.”

Bonnie gritted her teeth, determined to hear more. “Okay,” she said, swallowing her nausea, “So they start slow and begin to go faster. So what? Our guy started working months apart, but the last two were only weeks.”

“True,” Pepper said, “but he also held the first victim for a short period of time, the next two for much longer, and the final one for a few days.”

“So, he’s moving backwards,” Finn said quietly.

“And forwards. And sideways,” Pepper commented.

“How so?” Bonnie asked.

“Well, look at what the autopsy reports say. First victim was drugged,” Pepper pointed to the tox report to show the GHB that was in her system.

“Yeah, but she was also a habitual user,” Bonnie said. “It could have been that she drugged herself.”

“Not GHB, though. She was addicted to heroin, according to her parents. And there wasn’t any in her system when she died. Which means either she got clean herself, or-,”

“-the killer did when he abducted her,” Bonnie finished.

“Bingo,” Pepper said and pointed at her.

“But why roofie her?” Finn asked.

Pepper shrugged and pressed her lips together. “Don’t know. To subdue her? Keep her calm when friends were coming over? To move her to a new location? Could be anything. But look here,” Pepper pulled another sheet from the stack that Bonnie was holding and placed it on top, and then pointed to another tox report. “No other drugs in victims two and four – except for the pot in the last one – but trace amounts of Rohypnol in victim three.”

Bonnie squinted, shocked at what she was seeing. “This wasn’t in the report before,” she said, reading it over again.

“Hm?” Finn grunted in surprise and leaned in to look. After examining it for a minute, he pointed at the date and time stamp and said, “Looks like they didn’t have it in the initial screening, but they ran it twice, just to be for sure safesies. Looks like it was in her system for a little longer before she died.”

“How long does it stay in the system?” Bonnie asked curiously.

“Mm, depends on a few things, but it can be detected for up to a month after ingestion, in some cases,” Pepper answered.

“So why switch drugs, then?” Bonnie asked. “GHB for one. Roofies for another. And then pot and maybe nothing for the other two?”

“Exactly,” Pepper replied. “He’s moving, but I can’t see where he’s going… And then there’s his MO, and the victim profiles. None of it remains the same. He seems to be escalating his torture with the first three, starting small and then -,”

“Yeah,” Bonnie interrupted her, holding up a hand. She had been over the files, read through the reports, and she was intimately familiar with the condition each body had been in when it was dumped. Recurring nightmares had begun to crop up in her dreams, each featuring a new, fresh horror, to the theme of whatever victim she had been studying that day. The idea of discussing it again was suddenly nauseating, and she needed a break. “I know what happened. We can skip over that for now.” Finn shot her a grateful look and then switched his gaze to his hands. Needing a moment, she stood up and walked over to the other corner of the room, where her bar was waiting. With pace of a sloth on a hot day, she poured herself a scotch and took a sip. As she turned around to look at Pepper, though, she realized she wasn’t the only grim soul in the room, and so she held up her glass in question. For a moment, Pepper merely looked at her, piercing her thoughts with her gaze. And then, seeming to come to a decision, she simply nodded and sat back on the couch, shifting her eyes to look up at the ceiling. With a sigh, Bonnie poured a second glass and walked back over, sitting heavily on the leather sofa. 

“There’s one last thing I think you should see,” Pepper said as Bonnie handed her the other glass. “With two of the victims, when they checked the blood, they found really low iron levels.”

Bonnie frowned. “Okay, what could that mean?”

Pepper shrugged and sipped her scotch. “Could mean nothing,” she said. “Could mean something. Could simply mean he doesn’t feed them well and they get malnourished while he holds them.”

Bonnie paused and thought, something niggling in her brain as she mulled the detail over. When a thought occurred to her, she pulled the autopsy reports back onto her lap and began reviewing them again. “Here,” she said, pointing at the detail she had noticed and showing it to Pepper and Finn. “This cut on her wrist. The medical examiner noted it, but that it had been healing for a while when she was found.”

Pepper took the paper from her and read, her forehead wrinkling as she considered the details on the page and linked them together. “The question is: Why?” she commented when she was done. “I mean, yeah, that could be it, but it doesn’t really make sense.”

“They were held somewhere cold,” Bonnie reminded her.

“But to what end? To harvest their blood?”

Bonnie shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Gross,” Finn commented. “Why would they do that?”

Pepper shook her head. “You don’t need to keep a person cold to bleed them,” she said.

“But you do need to keep their blood cold,” Bonnie suggested. “Maybe they were just trying to store the blood and the person together.”

“Gross,” Finn said again, screwing up his face.

“Mm…,” Pepper said. “But the question remains: why harvest it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe someone needed it?” Bonnie suggested.

“Or sold it on the black market?” Pepper countered.

“Weird fetish?” Bonnie suggested with a smirk.

“Or Dexter-like obsession because of a childhood trauma,” Pepper offered.

Bonnie extended the index finger holding her glass and pointed it at Pepper. “That’s it,” she said with a wink. The alcohol had loosened her senses, and she was beginning to relinquish her grip on the constant despair that inhabited her soul. With a breath, she realized she could smile.

“Or, you know, there’s always the obvious,” Finn said slowly, some sort of realization dawning on his face.

“What’s that?” Pepper asked.

“Vampires,” he answered gravely.

Pepper tossed her head back and laughed, the half-drunk glass of scotch quivering dangerously in her hand. When she recovered, she pulled her head up, cleared her throat, and sighed. Finn watched her, a tentative smile playing at his lips. “You know,” she said, coming down from the humor, “something about this case reminds me of a story I heard once.”

Finn frowned and tilted his head at her.

“Yeah?” Bonnie asked. “What was the story?”

“Hmm,” Pepper mused. “I can’t remember the details that well. Mostly because I heard it years ago, back when I was in college. I took a class in Norse Mythology. Most interesting class I ever took,” she said sideways with a gesture toward Finn, who looked intrigued. “And there was a story the professor told us once about a killer who hid from the gods… and something about human sacrifice.” She paused and took a sip, thinking. “I think he dies and has to face Odin and there’s this big reckoning. But… I don’t know, I can’t remember. All I do remember,” she said heavily and pointed at Bonnie, “was how the killer would tie the women – who were actually probably teenage girls, considering the time – to a tree and leave them out in the cold for days.” She paused, taking another sip. Finn and Bonnie waited silently, holding their breath. “And then he would cut them on their wrists and let them bleed out into the snow. And if they died… or maybe it was if they lived, then…” Pepper trailed off and shook her head. “I don’t remember, it was so long ago. But something about this case reminds me of that story.”

Bonnie watched Pepper for a moment, mulling things over in her mind, trying to recall any bits of Norse Mythology she could remember, but there wasn’t much. “Where did you go to college?” she asked after a minute.

Pepper grinned. “Here, actually. Wizard U. Got a job in Kingdom after I graduated, and I just… never left.”

“Do you think the professor still works there?” Bonnie asked hopefully. Taking her cue, Finn pulled out his phone and began to type away on it.

Pepper shrugged. “Maybe,” she said with a grimace, “but I can’t remember his name.”

“Hm,” Bonnie grunted.

“Not a problem-o,” Finn said with a bit of a smile. “I got you. Give me a minute.”

Of course, that was easier said than done. An hour later, and all Finn could find out was that Norse Mythology was not a class offered at any college within a hundred-mile radius of Kingdom. Deciding that the professor had either retired or discontinued the course, he started trying to look up the story itself. But, naturally, after searching everywhere that he or Pepper could think of, he could find neither hide nor hair of the folk tale on the internet. And aside from finding some brief articles on human sacrifice, as well as a fictionalized anthology of short stories by Neil Gaiman, they were no closer to seeing how their killer was linked to an old legend than they had been at the start.

“It was a long shot, anyway,” Pepper commented when they finally gave up.

Bonnie slammed her laptop closed in frustration and stared at her, wishing they had more to go on than speculation and theories. “Finn, on Monday, I’d like you to call the university and see who used to teach Norse Mythology the last time they offered it.” Finn nodded and put his phone, which was now dangerously close to dying from the past hour of research, in his pocket. “What do you remember about your professor, in case there’s more than one?” Bonnie asked Pepper.

Pepper looked up as she thought. “Well, keep in mind, this was twenty-ish years ago, so he may be different. But at the time, he must have been about the age we are now. Mid-thirties, maybe forty? I remember he had a Russian sounding name, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.”

Bonnie pushed her lips to the side and thought. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll keep that in mind when I ask.”

“Call me and let me know what you find,” Pepper said, picking up her purse and standing to leave. Bonnie heaved herself off the couch and stumbled over to see her out.

“You’re going to wish you hadn’t said that,” she said. “I plan to use you a _lot_ for this investigation. Just please don’t tell anyone. Not even if you think you can trust them. The fewer who know, the better.”

“Not an issue,” Pepper said. “I read the notes; I know why you’re worried.” She turned her glance into the room and offered a wave to Finn, who had started to gather his things. “Finn, really nice to meet you,” she said.

Finn beamed at her. “It was awesome to meet you too,” he said brightly and jumped forward to shake her hand. Bonnie noticed how she ran her eyes appreciatively over his uniform in a quick glance as she held his hand, and then dropped it and turned away.

“Talk soon,” Bonnie said, and pulled her in for a hug.

Pepper snorted and tapped her on the back, once. “Famous last words,” she said, and was out the door. 

+++++++++

When Marceline arrived at the nursing home on Tuesday, she was in an uncharacteristically good mood. “Morning Charisse,” she greeted the nurse at the front desk as she walked in.

Charisse looked up and flashed her a bright smile that always made Marceline feel appreciated and funny, even though she was pretty sure she gave the same thrilled look to everyone who walked by. “Good morning, Beautiful!” Charisse replied joyfully. Marceline beamed and walked over to the desk, stopping to lean on it with both hands, enjoying the attention. She had to admit, Charisse had a charming, genuine quality to her that made everyone around her perk up and vie for her attention. Marceline had a hard time resisting the pull, especially when paired with Charisse’s large brown eyes, high cheekbones, and coffee skin.

“How was your weekend?” Marceline asked.

Charisse’s grin grew mischievous. “Good enough that to tell you about it would border on unprofessional,” she said.

“Mm, I like it when you talk unprofessional to me,” Marceline replied and closed her eyes wistfully. Charisse giggled, making her grin even more.

“What about you?” she asked.

“Oh, you know,” Marceline said, taking a finger and tracing it along the desk, “Just hung out with a couple friends. Jammed a little.”

“Writing anything new?” Charisse asked curiously. Marceline met her eyes with a smirk.

“Maaaybe,” she said and sat lightly on the edge of the desk.

Charisse leaned in, hands propping up her chin, and asked in a low voice, “Anything you’d be willing to play for me?”

Marceline tilted her head and cocked an eyebrow at Charisse. “That depends,” she said.

“On what?”

“Where you want me to play.”

A slow smile spread on Charisse’s face, sweeter than the one she had given Marceline before. “I was thinking my place. I could use a good night in with a… friend.”

Marceline found herself matching Charisse’s smile and nodded. “So, we’re friends now, huh?” she asked quietly.

“Mm,” Charisse chirped and shrugged with a grin.

“Good enough friends that you’ll tell me what happened this weekend?” Marceline added.

Charisse laughed lightly. “You caught me. But that’s a story that is best told with a glass of wine and some mood lighting.”

“Sounds like my kind of night,” Marceline said, leaning in. “Who doesn’t love a story and a song?”

“You read my mind,” Charisse replied wistfully.

Five minutes later, Charisse’s number burning a hole in her phone, Marceline left the front desk behind in higher spirits than she had felt in months. She hummed to herself as she strolled down the corridor, ready to suggest a rousing game of chess to Simon. She would definitely lose, but she already knew it couldn’t do anything to dampen her mood.

Until she walked through his door and saw what was waiting for her.

Wondering if she was having a nightmare, she paused in the doorway, rooted to the spot. _No one was supposed to be allowed in_ , she thought wildly, wondering how she could undo what was done.

“Hey, Marceline,” Bonnibel said heavily from where she was perched behind Simon’s chair. “We, um… We need to talk.”


End file.
